‘I am the national president’: Sharad Pawar asserts MLAs alone don’t mean entire party

Ajit Pawar and eight other MLAs broke ranks from Sharad Pawar’s NCP and joined the BJP-Shinde Sena government in July, where junior Pawar was made the Deputy Chief Minister while the other NCP leaders were given ministerial posts.

Avoiding comments on questions related to Ajit Pawar, the NCP chief said, “An MLA does not mean a party. Some MLAs in our party have taken a different stand, this is a fact, but it does not mean they are a party. When these people were asked who the NCP president was, they said Sharad Pawar…I am the national president and Jayant Patil is the state president.”

The NCP chief admitted that some MLAs from Ajit Pawar’s faction had written to him on joining the Shinde-led government when the one led by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) collapsed following a split in the Shiv Sena. “But no decision was taken,” said Sharad Pawar.

Sharad Pawar reiterating himself as the national president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) comes a day after he first agreed with his daughter and party’s working president Supriya Sule’s statement that NCP has not split and Ajit Pawar continues to be its leader but retracted the statement hours later stating that he did not acknowledge his nephew as the party leader.

Targeting the BJP-led central government, Sharad Pawar said no matter how much the BJP misuses central probe agencies to crush the Opposition, the Opposition leaders would put up a united fight against the saffron party in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. “We will put up a united fight against them. Even if (BJP) they put us in jail, we will continue to fight against such fascist forces,” said the veteran NCP leader.

”The ruling party has the sole objective of breaking parties. They want us to dump our ideology and join them,” said Pawar.

Regarding the mood of people in Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar said,”There is resentment among the people, especially the youngsters, about BJP. Because of this, the state government is not ready to hold local-self government.” Talking about the INDIA bloc’s meeting that will be held in Mumbai on August 31 and September 1, the NCP chief said, ”National presidents of 16 parties will attend the meeting. We will review the preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and discuss conducting joint campaigns.”

Responding to NCP leader Hasan Mushrif’s claims that he did not get support from the party when the Enforcement Directorate conducted raids and probed him, Sharad Pawar said, “What should the party do ? The party can’t interfere in such things. We never interfered in the case of others too. Anil Deshmukh went to jail. Sanjay Raut went to jail. Nawab Malik went to jail…I don’t know how he (Mushrif) got relief. I don’t know who he communicated with. Since action was taken against him and then stopped, it means he has established contacts with some people.”