NCP student leader Sonia Doohan’s mission is to ‘rescue’ poached MLAs

By Saiyed Moziz Imam Zaidi

New Delhi, Aug 21 (SocialNews.XYZ) The English speaking Sonia Doohan heads the students wing of the Nationalist Congress Party and is its official spokesperson. She made her mark in the NCP after successfully "rescuing" party MLAs from a Haryana hotel who were siding with the BJP to form the government in Maharashtra.

That time she was successful and she made the same attempt in Goa but the cops there were more vigilant and apprehended her in the hotel. They alleged that she checked in with fake IDs but later she was released on bail.

Doohan, originally from Hisar, wants to contest the Haryana polls in 2024 as the NCP candidate as she says she is an ardent fan of Sharad Pawar. She says that despite the miniscule presence of the party in Haryana, "I have a strong force of 800 volunteers who are ready anytime and with them I was able to rescue the MLAs from Haryana. I would have done the same in Goa too but the police managed to nab me because some of them were staying just beside my room."

Though unsuccessful, she came into the limelight for attempting to rescue the MLAs in a 2019-like "rescue" operation, where she had managed to take out four NCP MLAs from a Gurugram hotel. This led to the fall of the Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra who had teamed up with the NCP's Ajit Pawar after the Assembly poll results came out divided.

In Goa she checked into Hotel Taj Resort and Convention Centre in Dona Paula where rebel Shiv Sena MLAs, who had moved against Uddhav Thackeray, were staying.

Both Doohan and her aide Shray Kotiyal were granted bail on Sunday after being arrested by the police. The NCP had at that time rejected the Goa police's claim that she and her aide had used fake documents to get into the hotel.

Doohan said they were treated like "terrorists" and were harassed by the authorities.

They were in Goa as tourists but the mission was to rescue the MLAs which failed. She said she was picked up from the hotel around 5.30 a.m. by the police, commandos and members of a political party who tried to video shoot the incident.

But in the Haryana operation four Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLAs from Maharashtra -- Narhari Zhirwal, Daulat Daroda, Anil Patil and Nitin Pawar -- were "rescued" by her and her team members in coordination with other leaders of the party from a Gurugram five-star hotel.

But its a long way to go in politics for Doohan who hails from Petwar in Haryana. She has been president since 2018 of the NCP students wing and national spokesperson of the party. The NCP has no presence in her home state but she says that women like her, if given a chance, can make a mark in Parliament and not be just a MP or a MLA.

Source: IANS