Spilling the beans on the 25-year-old NCP’s secrets, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Wednesday said that earlier, in several occasions, the Sharad Pawar-led party had negotiated power deals with the BJP, but backed out at the last minute.
Ajit Pawar referred to instances of 2014, 2017, 2019 and 2022 when the party had engaged in negotiations with the BJP.
He pointed out that in 2014, the charisma of Narendra Modi took the nation by storm and the BJP came to power, and today he has emerged as one of the the most prominent leaders in the world.
“In 2014, when Vidhan Sabha election results were pouring in we (NCP) decided to join hands with BJP and support them from outside. (Union minister and BJP leader) Nitin Gadkari had offered the proposal for the NCP-BJP alliance,” he said.
“Praful Patel (who was the then General Secretary) had announced that we will give support to the BJP from outside. We were asked to go to the swearing-in ceremony at Wankhede Stadium when Devendra Fadnavis (of the BJP) was sworn in as Chief Minister. If we were not supposed to join them, then why were we asked to attend the ceremony?,” he asked.
The junior Pawar then referred to the series of negotiations that took place in 2017. “The meeting were held at Varsha (the Chief Minister’s bungalow)… we held talks with Fadnavis … from our side ... I was there and so were Chhagan Bhujbal and Jayant Patil, and some others and from the BJP, including Fadnavis, Vinod Tawde and Sudhir Mungantiwar were there … but we had to back out,” he pointed out.
Opening up on the early morning swearing-in ceremony in 2019, he said that the NCP had to back out at the last minute. "In 2019, we were asked to join hands with Shiv Sena. In 2017, Pawar saheb had termed Shiv Sena as a communal party. What changed in 2019 then?,” he asked.
Referring to the 2022 coup by Eknath Shinde in the Shiv Sena, Ajit said the NCP had a chance for an alliance then too. “I have the Xerox copies of the letter signed by 53 MLAs and 9 MLCs,” he said.