A day before the Maharashtra assembly session begins, the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has approached Sharad Pawar and tried to convince him to join Shiv Sena-BJP with the rest of his faction. However, Sharad Pawar has indicated that he would not budge from his stand of not aligning with BJP.
On Sunday morning, rebel NCP faction leaders Praful Patel, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, senior NCP leaders like Sunil Tatkare and the eight other NCP ministers like Dilip Walse Patil, Chhagan Bhujbal, Dhananjay Munde and others went to Yashwantrao Chavan Centre to meet Sharad Pawar. According to Patel, they did not take an appointment and went directly to meet the senior leader.
“We met our honourable leader Sharad Pawar to get his blessings. All our senior leaders were there. We have a lot of respect for him and hold him in high regard. But we want the NCP to remain as one party. For that, he should think appropriately. We have requested him to guide us in the following days,” Patel told reporters after meeting Pawar.
According to Patel’s own admission, Pawar senior did not respond when NCP leaders sought his blessing or when they tried to change his mind regarding joining the BJP- Shiv Sena government. While the Ajit Pawar faction held out a threat to the Sharad Pawar faction of splitting the party and hence the need for Pawar senior to join them, the Sharad Pawar faction has, however, given a different spin to episode.
State NCP chief Jayant Patil of the Sharad Pawar faction met Sharad Pawar after the rebel NCP faction met him. He claimed that Ajit Pawar and the other NCP ministers were apologetic when they met Pawar. “They apologised for the incidents that have happened in the past few days and asked him to find a way out of the current situation. They wanted Pawar to address all the party cadres in the coming days,” said Patil.
An Ajit Pawar camp leader, however, claimed that the meet was an effort to try to convince Sharad Pawar one more time to get on board on the issue of joining hands with BJP or else there was a real threat of the party getting split. He claimed they did not regret their action of joining Shiv Sena-BJP alliance.
According to sources, Pawar has told his faction after the meet that there was no question of him joining hands with the BJP as there was a difference in ideology and he would continue to oppose them.
