Nobody has defected or broken away from NCP: Praful Patel

Patel was present at the oath-taking ceremony when Ajit Pawar broke ranks with the NCP and joined the Eknath Shinde Maharashtra government as Deputy CM.

After Ajit Pawar, in a major jolt to the NCP, took oath as the Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister on Sunday afternoon and joined hands with the NDA, raising questions about the future of the party, working president Praful Patel rubbished claims of a split and has said that they are "one party" and that Sharad Pawar is their leader.

"Nobody has defected or broken away from the party. Sometimes there are differences within the party and it gets resolved. You wait for some more days and you'll see what I mean," NDTV reported Patel as saying.

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Patel was present at the oath-taking ceremony when Ajit Pawar broke ranks with the NCP and joined the Eknath Shinde Maharashtra government as Deputy Chief Minister. Eight senior leaders of the party also took oath as ministers.

The 63-year-old had quit as Leader of Opposition on Friday and convened a meeting for Sunday, during which he met his 40-plus supporting NCP MLAs out of a total of 54 present in the party and drove to Raj Bhavan with Patel.

Later, in an address to the media on Sunday after taking oath, Ajit Pawar expressed his wish to work for the NCP adding that he would fight future polls under the NCP symbol. He also insisted that the party was still intact.

Meanwhile, Sharad Pawar on Sunday reacting to the development slammed Patel for "abandoning" the guidelines of the party president and taking a "wrong path". "I am not upset with anybody except Praful Patel and Tatkare. I had appointed them as general secretaries but they abandoned the guidelines of the party president and took the wrong path. They have no right to remain in that position," the NCP chief said.

He added that the party will decide action against those who violated the party line and has already expelled two leaders who attended Ajit Pawar's oath-taking ceremony.

Patel, who is a close aide of Sharad Pawar, was elevated to the post of NCP's working president along with Supriya Sule on the 24th Foundation Day of the party in June.