Three days after the tragic death of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in a plane crash in Baramati, his uncle and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar revealed on Saturday that his nephew had been in favour of a merger between the two warring factions of the NCP.
Pawar shared that discussions about the reunification of the two NCP factions had been ongoing for the last four months and that Ajit had set February 12 as the target date for the merger to take place.
The veteran leader clarified that the talks had been taking place between Ajit Pawar and Jayan Patil, an NCP (SP) leader, and that he himself was not actively involved in these negotiations.
Pawar said he was not aware of the decision of Ajit’s wife Sunetra to join the BJP-led Mahayuti government as a deputy chief minister.
"I have no information about it (Sunetra Pawar's name for the Deputy CM post). Her party must have decided. What I saw in the newspaper today: some names like Praful Patel and Sunil Tatakare who have taken the initiative to make some decisions,” he said.
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Pawar hinted that the "haste" decision to appoint Sunetra Pawar as Deputy Chief Minister may have been made by leaders in the Mahayuti government in Mumbai.
“If there is a problem in the family, the family stands together. There are no issues in the family... All these discussions are not taking place here; they are happening in Mumbai. Praful Patel, Sunil Tatkare, and other senior leaders are having these discussions. Whatever is being seen appears to be decisions taken by them. I will not comment on this,” he added.
Commenting on the tragic death of Ajit in the plane crash, Pawar urged against politicising the incident.
“This is a huge loss for Maharashtra. The state has lost a dynamic and decisive leader,” he said. “Some people are saying there is some politics behind this, but it was an accident, and there is no politics involved. Politics should not be brought into this.”
