Pune, Nov 7 (PTI) NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar has questioned statements by leaders on the possibility of bringing the two factions of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) together, saying they had made contradictory claims on the issue following the death of Ajit Pawar in January this year.
The legislator said former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, who then headed the NCP, wanted the Pawar family to remain united and did not want differences within it.
Ajit Pawar also wanted the two NCP factions to reunite, keeping in mind the age of party patriarch Sharad Pawar, who is now 85 and heads the NCP (SP), said the Karjat-Jamkhed MLA.
Rohit Pawar said Ajit Pawar had taken to the streets to take on the BJP in the municipal corporation and zilla parishad elections.
He said many leaders had said after Ajit Pawar’s death that there had been no discussions on bringing the two factions together. “However, some of them were now claiming that the two factions would have reunited had Ajit Pawar been alive,” he said.
Rohit Pawar said such contradictory statements could be an attempt to put pressure on Sunetra Pawar, who now heads the NCP. He also questioned whether the renewed talk of a merger was an indication that things were not going well within the ruling alliance.
Amid a viral video of senior NCP leader Praful Patel visiting Sharad Pawar at a Mumbai hospital and discussing a possible meeting after November 10, his party colleague Sunil Tatkare had said the merger of the two factions would have happened in February this year if Ajit Pawar were alive.
The two developments have once again sparked speculation about the merger of the two factions of the NCP, which is an ally of the BJP and a partner in the ruling Mahayuti coalition in Maharashtra.
