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Pawar gathers another to his fold

Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Lok Sabha member from Maharashtra Rajabhau Thakre has joined Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party.

Thakre's name figures in the NCP's list of candidates for Lok Sabha. He will contest from Yavatmal.

He had met Pawar at Wardha on Monday.

Thakre, who defeated Congressman Ghulam Nabi Azad in the 1996 Lok Sabha poll from Yavatmal, had fallen out with the BJP for his criticism of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Incidentally, the NCP has changed its candidate for the Sakri assembly seat in Dhule district. Former minister Govindrao Chowdhury replaces Mahadu Gotu Gaikwad, according to a party release.

NCP general secretary Gurunath Kulkarn said Pawar had effected the change.

Chowdhury had won Sakri, a reserved constituency for the scheduled tribe, in the 1995 assembly election as a BJP candidate. A former minister of the alliance government in Maharashtra, he had quit the BJP and joined the NCP recently.

UNI

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