Meet Sonia Doohan, Who Led The Dramatic ‘Rescue’ of 4 NCP MLAs

NCP student wing president Sonia Doohan, planned, strategised & whisked away 4 rebel MLAs from a Hotel in Gurugram.

Sonia Doohan, NCP’s student wing president.

Photo Courtesy: Sonia Doohan

As the Maharashtra political drama nears its end with the Sena-NCP-Congress set to form government, one name that has grabbed the spotlight is that of Sonia Doohan. 28-year-old Doohan, NCP’s student wing president, was tasked with ‘rescuing’ four rebel NCP MLAs- Daulat Daroda, Narhari Zirwal, Nitin Pawar and Anil Patil.

The four MLAs were reportedly missing since Ajit Pawar’s swearing-in as the deputy Chief Minister on Saturday, 23 November.

Doohan led a mission that brought the missing MLAs back into the NCP fold in the early hours of Monday in a dramatic ‘rescue mission’ from a hotel in Gurugram where they were allegedly held up by the BJP.

How Did The Rescue Operation Begin?

The rescue operation took off when NCP Chief Sharad Pawar received a text message from one of the four NCP MLAs on Friday evening that they were reportedly confined in a hotel somewhere in the capital.

Doohan and the NCP Youth Wing President, Dhiraj Sharma then proceeded to find out the location of the legislators which turned out to be The Oberoi hotel in Gurugram and hatched a plan to ‘rescue’ them.

“They were kept on the fifth floor in room numbers 5109, 5110 and 5111. When we reached there, we saw that they had turned the entire hotel into a fortress. There were about 100 to 150 BJP members there. I can claim that they were from the BJP because I saw their district president, Bhupinder Chauhan there. We understood after surveying the situation that it will not be easy.”

Sonia Doohan, NCP national students’ wing president  

Doohan said that she then booked rooms for the NCP workers who were in on the operation and roped in 2 teams of 100 people each to monitor the activity of the BJP workers who were guarding the hotel like a fortress.

“At around 5 PM on Sunday, we managed to release one of our MLAs Nitin Pawar in the one or two minutes of time that we had. At about 9:30 pm or 10 pm, we noticed that their teams were changing. Maybe the teams were being changed while they went to eat and at that time, a time bracket of 5 to 7 minutes opened up. Then, we released two more of our MLAs.” 

Sonia Doohan, NCP national students’ wing president  

The MLAs were whisked away from the back door of the hotel that was the only exit which had no CCTV cameras monitoring it. The legislators were then rushed to Sharad Pawar’s residence in New Delhi.

“We reached 6 Janpath, which is the residence of Mr Pawar, where we had dinner. After that, we booked the 2.40 am flight and reached Mumbai at 4.40 am in a GoAir flight. At 5.10 am we reached the hotel.

Somehow, one of our MLAs Mr. Narhari, who we thought we had rescued, went from the front door. Then, a fight broke out there (with BJP workers) ,” she recounted. MLA Narhari Zirwali too was brought to Sharad Pawar’s residence later that night.

Who Is Sonia Doohan?

Hailing from Hisar district in Haryana, Sonia Doohan made her foray in student politics by joining NCP at the age of 21. Doohan, who completed her schooling from Hisar district, moved to Ambala to pursue a degree in BSc from Kurukshetra University. It was here that she was introduced to politics and decided to join the NCP.

After leading the NCP students’ wing in two Delhi University elections, once as the Party’s state president and then as the National General Secretary, Doohan was promoted to the position she holds today. She was made the national president of the NCP’s students’ wing.