MUMBAI, May 26: Former Chief Minister Sharad Pawar and former Member of Parliament Murli Deora will decide the new presidents of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) and Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC) respectively, as their supporters dominate the list of newly elected Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates as well as District Congress Committee (DCC) presidents.

Pawar, Deora, former ministers Ramrao Adik, Suresh Kalmadi and Vilasrao Deshmukh, former Lok Sabha speaker Shivraj Patil, Assembly Deputy Speaker Sharad Tasare, former Assembly speaker Shanakrrao Jagtap and Congress spokesperson V N Gadgil have already been elected unopposed as PCC delegates.

The election of the presidents of the MRCC and MPCC is scheduled to be held on June 9. The newly elected PCC and DCC delegates, and all former MPCC presidents are eligible to vote in the elections.

Four out of six district presidents and 80 per cent of the delegates in Mumbai are supporters of Deora, while in the rest of Maharashtra, Pawar has scored over his rivals as a majority of the district Congress presidents and PCC delegates owe allegiance to him.

Pawar has succeeded in marginalising his arch rivals and former ministers A R Antulay, S B Chavan and former chief minister Sudhakarrao Naik in the organisational elections, who had limited their interests to their own districts Raigad, Nanded and Yeotmal, respectively.

The failure of former MP Gurudas Kamat, who is in the race for the MRCC president's post, to ensure election of his nominees, proved a major victory for his rival Deora, who resigned from the party post in the wake of massive debacle in the civic elections. In the event of Deora deciding to opt out of the race, he will ensure that a person of his choice is elected to the post so that he can ``remote control'' the organisation.

Prominent among Pawar's chosen ones for the MPCC poll are leader of Opposition Chhagan Bhujbal, Padamsingh Patil and former minister Vijay Sinh Mohite Patil.

Close on the heels of a demand made by Rajesh Pilot to encourage young leadership, a section of the state legislators too have demanded that the new president of the state Congress committee should be young. Favourites among the legislators are Jayant Patil, Dilip Walse Patil and R R Patil. Significantly, all of them are strong supporters of Pawar.

According to MPCC general secretary Gurunath Kulkarni, out of the 47 DCC presidents, 42 have been elected unopposed. ``The entire election process passed off peacefully,'' Kulkarni claimed.

He said elections could not be held in Beed, Chandrapur, Akola, Nagpur and Nanded as the final list of voters was not available as per the guidelines laid down by the AICC. Prominent among those elected are Gopal Gulwe (Nasik Rural), Murlidhar Mane (Nasik city), Mohan Joshi (Pune), Prakash Yelgulwar (Solapur).

Among the 596 PCC delegates, 26 delegates are women including Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Najma Heptullah, Pratibha Patil, Sudha Joshi and Alka Desai.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.