Despite persuasion by senior party leaders, including Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde, state unit chief Suryabhan Wahadane, vice president Pandurang Phundkar, general secretary Sharad Kulkarni and organising secretary of Vidarbha, Arvind Shahapurkar, the rebel leader was unwilling to withdraw his resignation.

A senior functionary who held the position of deputy leader of the BJP in the state legislative assembly, Adsad was peeved by the party leadership's decision to drop his two close aides, Jagdish Gupta and Goverdhan Sharma, from the state ministry last week and induct Vinayakrao Korde -- a low profile MLA from Achalpur.

Adsad is believed to have told the leadership that atleast Gupta should notbe dropped as he was popular in western Vidarbha for his organisational skills. His plea was rejected outright by the leadership to facilitate their caste-politics by accommodating a Mali legislator in the ministry.

Political circles feel that the induction of Korde and removal of Gupta and Sharma from the ministry is a calculated bid to cut Adsad down to size.

Apparently, Adsad's campaign against his own government over the setting up of a Medical University at Nashik instead of Nagpur, hasn't gone well with the higher-ups.

Although Gupta and Sharma have preferred to keep mum, their mentor chose to tender his resignation from the chairmanship of the prestigious Vidarbha Development Board in protest against the decision of the leadership. He sent the resignation to party chief Suryakant Wahadne and Gopinath Munde for consideration. The Chairman of the Board enjoys the status of a cabinet minister.

Talking to The Indian Express, State BJP vice president Pandurang Phundkar and organising secretaryVidarbha Arvind Shahapurkar claimed that Adsad has agreed to withdraw his resignation and the drama has ended. Reliable sources, however, claimed that both leaders had failed to pacify the rebel leader. ``If there is no respect for good workers in the party it is better to relinquish the post'', he reportedly told both the leaders.

Adsad's resignation has had its repercussions. Over a dozen corporators of Amravati Municipal Corporation, including Mayor Nitin Wankhede, Amravati city BJP chief Ramesh Sharma, and district president of Bharatiya Yuva Morcha Tushar Bharatiya, have resigned from their posts.

Defending the removal of both the ministers, Shahapurkar, said the party has already decided to promote Other Backward Class (OBC) leaders within the organisation in view of the ensuing state elections and the recent debacle of the party in Lok Sabha polls in the region.

The recent Lok Sabha elections had proved that OBC votes in the region went en bloc to the Congress and hence the party decided toinclude Korde, an OBC leader from Amravati in the ministry. To accommodate Korde, two other ministers from the region, Gupta and Sharma of the BJP were removed. ``We already told it to Gupta and Sharma in advance and both have agreed on it in the interests of the organisation'', he claimed, asserting there was now no dispute.

Meanwhile, about 500 prominent party workers of the district on Monday held a meeting at Adsad's hometown of Dhamangaon in Amravati district and decided to lodge a protest with the higher-ups in the party. Adsad himself presided over the meeting while Gupta was reportedly present.

New Youth Congress body appointed

The new executive body of the Maharashtra Pradesh Youth Congress Committee has been appointed recently with Anees Ahmed, MLA, as president. A press release issued by Manjunath Bhandari, joint secretary of Indian Youth Congress, has listed the office-bearers in the new executive committee.

Anees Ahmed, the newly appointed president, told The Indian Express thatthe 287-member earlier executive committee, constituted by Dr Sunil Deshmukh, former national general secretary of the Youth Congress, was dissolved on May 9, as it was ineffective. The new committee was constituted and was approved by Bhandari on the same day, Ahmed said.