MH-SHINDE-NCP

Congress, Pawar-led NCP will "come together in future": Shinde
    Pune, Oct 8 (PTI) Senior Congress leader Sushilkumar
Shinde on Tuesday said his party and the Nationalist Congress
Party (NCP) will "come together in the future".
    The former Union minister said he and NCP president
Sharad Pawar were raised under the same tree (in the
Congress), though the Maratha strongman does not openly speak
about it.
    "Even if the Congress and NCP are two different
parties, but today I would like to tell you that in the future
we will come closer to each other... The NCP and Congress will
come together because now they are also tired and we are also
tired," he said, without elaborating.
    Shinde was speaking at a public meeting in his home
district Solapur in western Maharashtra.
    Talking about himself and Pawar, Shinde said he is s
just eight-and-a-half months younger to the NCP leader.
    Both leaders are in their late 70s.
    "We were raised under one tree...our bringing up took
place in the lap of one mother (the Congress) and we came
forward under the leadership of Indira Gandhi and Yashwantrao
Chavan.
    "That is why today we have regrets in our hearts and
he, too, has the same feeling... the only difference is that
he (Pawar) is not expressive about it but when time will come,
he will speak about it," he added.
    Pawar left the Congress to establish the NCP in May
1999 along with his colleagues P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar.
    The Congress and the NCP later joined hands to rule
Maharashtra for 15 years (1999-2014). They were also allies in
the Congress-led ruling coalition UPA 1 and 2 at the Centre
(2004-2014).
    The two parties have entered into a seat-sharing
arrangement for the October 21 assembly polls in Maharashtra.
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)