Sharad Pawar: NCP working with Congress since foundation

Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said he did not speak about his party’s merger with the Congress but how the two parties have worked together.

Asked about his party’s possible merger with the Congress, Pawar told reporters in Satara on Thursday that he never made any such remark.

Pawar, in an interview to a newspaper, had recently said that in the next couple of years, several regional parties will associate more closely with the Congress or even merge with it.

Elaborating on it, he said, “Take the example of our party-NCP. From foundation till today, NCP and Congress have been working together. The ideology of both the parties is rooted in (the ideals of Mahatma) Gandhi and (Jawaharlal) Nehru. So, it will be no surprise to see an increase in sentiments among parties that share (an ideology similar to that of the Congress), coming together and working more closely with each other.”

On his assessment of the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra after the completion of three phases, the former Union minister said, “It seems that voting in all these three phases is unsettling for Modi and the reason (for saying this) is that after these phases, PM Modi has changed his tone. He has started making a mention of Muslim community openly (in his speeches). It seems he thinks that the situation would change by bringing in communal thoughts. It is my observation that some people in his party think that as the phases complete, his position is getting in danger,” he said.

In Maharashtra we as a part of Maha Vikas Aghadi are winning 30 to 35 seats, the veteran leader said.

On PM Modi’s claim that Congress received money from Ambani and Adani, Pawar said it used to be a topic of discussion in the country as to who the Ambanis and Adanis were friends with. “But the same people against whom these talks were on are now putting the blame on Congress,” Pawar said.

Addressing a rally in Hyderabad on Wednesday, PM Modi accused the Congress of having a nexus with “Ambani and Adani”, and asked if the party has received “tempo loads of black money” from the two businessmen for its leader Rahul Gandhi to stop “abusing” them. To a query about Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray and PM Modi’s scheduled joint election rally in Mumbai later this month, he said that Modi going with Thackeray shows how the PM desperately needs help.

“It shows where his confidence has gone,” he said.

(With agency inputs)