Raj Thackeray accepts resignation of leaders who quit after poll rout

Mumbai, Nov 5: MNS chief Raj Thackeray, whose party suffered a rout in the recently held Maharashtra Assembly polls following which some of its key leaders resigned, has said that he has accepted all resignations submitted to him.

"I have accepted all the resignations that were sent to me by leaders of my party. I have now come to know through these resignations who all stand by me and who don't," Thackeray said in a statement issued last evening.

By breaking his silence on the resignations submitted by senior leaders like Pravin Darekar and Vasant Gite, both former Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) legislators, Thackeray won't be making efforts to win over those who have drifted away from the party post its disastrous performance in the Assembly polls, sources said.

Darekar, who had served as MNS general secretary, resigned as a mark of protest last week, after party's top brass blamed their legislators for the poll debacle.

Gite, who had played a major role in the success of MNS in Nashik from where the party won three Assembly seats in 2009, submitted his resignation on Monday along with a significant chunk of leaders in Nashik.

Out of the 288 Assembly seats it contested in the recent polls, MNS managed to win only Junnar (Pune) seat and its vote share fell to just 3 per cent in the state. MNS had won 13 seats in the 2009 Assembly elections, polling 11.88 per cent of the votes in the 143 seats it had then contested.

PTI