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Heckling audience forces Chavan to acknowledge Pawar's contribution

Former Union home minister S B Chavan had to face some embarrassing moments at the state-level convention hosted by the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee on Wednesday when his speech was repeatedly interrupted by a section of Congressmen.

Even as Chavan was emphasising a point that the Congress currently faced with a do-or-die situation for its survival and that Congressmen should forget all their differences, a group of Congress activists in the audience stood up and raised slogans.

The slogans were in praise of Sharad Pawar, and completely drowned out Chavan's speech.

The Congressmen were apparently irked because Chavan had failed to give credit to Pawar for the party's spectacular success in Maharashtra in the recent Lok Sabha election, during the course of his speech.

Chavan had begun his speech by recalling Sonia Gandhi's contribution in rejuvenating the Congress on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections. He then went on to hail the contribution of the Republican Party of India that allied with the Congress. The Muslim community, too, renewed support to the Congress, Chavan went on to add but failed to mention Pawar's contribution.

Irked over this, a section of the audience were on their feet and began shouting slogans, forcing Chavan to halt his speech midway

Chavan then took his cue and acknowledged that he should have mentioned the contributions of Pawar. "I agree with you that Pawar's contributions have been great for the party's success in the Lok Sabha election," he told the audience. But, even this failed to pacify the group which continued to interrupt Chavan's speech, and Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ranjit Deshmukh's repeated appeals also fell on deaf ears.

It was then that Pawar himself reprimanded the group and asked them to observe decorum. This had the necessary pacifying effect upon the vociferous group and Chavan could complete his address without any interruption thereafter.

UNI

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