NCP president Sharad Pawar
Credit: PTI File Photo
In the run up to the crucial meeting of I.N.D.I.A in Mumbai, Sharad Pawar on Friday asserted that there was no split in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) - a statement that rattled the opposition bloc which is consolidating itself to take on the BJP-led NDA.
The leadership of Congress and Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), the two Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) partners, feel that Pawar’s stand and statements are sending confusing signals to the ranks and files.
The statement of Pawar, the NCP founder-president comes a day after his daughter and NCP working president Supriya Sule said that she wants to put on record that there was no split in the NCP.
The reference of the father-daughter duo was to Ajit Pawar switching over to the ruling NDA camp with lion’s share of legislators of the party to become the deputy chief minister alongside BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis in the alliance government led by Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde, who toppled the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
The Pawar-nephew in the rebellion was supported by Pawar’s long-time aide Praful Patel, Sunil Tatkare, the rebel group’s national president and state president, respectively.
The back-to-back statements of Pawar and Sule come just days ahead of the August 31-September 1 meet of I.N.D.I.A at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Mumbai, in which 80 leaders including chief ministers, former chief ministers and party presidents of 26-plus parties would be president.
“Some leaders have taken a different stand,” Pawar said in his bastion of Baramati about the July 2, 2023 developments.
“Now, he (Ajit Pawar) has taken a stand that is against the party, and we have given a complaint to the speaker (of Assembly) and are awaiting his response,” said Pawar, a former four-time Maharashtra chief minister and three-time former union minister.
When asked about Sule’s statement that there is no split in NCP and Ajit Pawar was a leader of the party, Pawar said: “Yes, there is no question about it…how can anybody say that there is a split in NCP? There’s no question about it.”
“What does a split in a political party mean? Split occurs when a large group in a party is separated at the national level. But no such thing has happened here. Some people left the party, some took a different stand…In democracy it is their right to take a decision,” he said.
A day earlier, Sule, the Baramati MP, had said: “There is no split in NCP. Ours is one single party, though one group is in power and the other is in opposition. Ajit Dada is the senior leader of our party.”
However, later during the day, when Pawar was asked again about his statement, he said that it was misunderstood. “I never said that,” he said to a query on reports that he had said Ajit Pawar was “our leader”.
"I am not saying that he is our leader. She (Sule) is his (Ajit Pawar's) younger sister. There is no need to draw political meaning out of it,” he said.
Pawar thereafter said, “Opportunity to correct oneself is given once. Opportunity cannot be given again or one shouldn't ask for it again” - a reference to the November 2019 early morning swearing in ceremony.