In a significant development that may have a strong bearing on the prospects of Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance in the next Assembly elections in Maharashtra, former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was on Friday elected Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) vice-president.

A strong advocate, of late, of go-it-alone policy for the party in the Assembly elections, Deshmukh was elected unopposed with presidential candidate Sharad Pawar’s panel fielding no candidate against him.

While Deshmukh contested as an Independent candidate, NCP sources said he had the backing of Pawar “right from the beginning”. As against the two posts of vice-president, Pawar fielded only one candidate leaving the other for the Congress leader. According to MCA sources, without the NCP chief’s support, Deshmukh never stood any chance of making it to the MCA. Incidentally, Deshmukh, who had defied the party’s gag order on July 1 to speak against the Congress-NCP alliance, has been keeping quiet since filing his nomination papers last week.

The Congress had cautioned party leaders against expressing any personal opinion publicly about the alliance in Maharashtra. Deshmukh, who was the first to go public against the alliance, had, however, reiterated his opposition to the alliance the same day.

The ruling party’s gag order had come a day after Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Pawar shared a platform in Mumbai where the NCP chief had proposed that the Bandra-Worli sea-link be named after Rajiv Gandhi. According to Congress sources, even the Congress president was taken unawares as the NCP chief had not given any clue about his proposal until he announced it.

... contd.