Will work for NCP till I am alive: Ajit Pawar

Senior leader of the Nationalist Congress Party and Sharad Pawar’s nephew, Ajit Pawar, has firmly quashed hectic speculation in Maharashtra that he was going to jump ship with close to 40 MLAs and align with the BJP.

“I will remain with the NCP until my last breath,” he told the media on Tuesday afternoon before launching a sharp attack on the Eknath Shinde government for their callous handling of the Maharashtra Bhushan Award that resulted in 13 deaths last week.

Pawar, 63, is leader of opposition in the state and the most popular NCP leader after Sharad Pawar. However, his brief dalliance with the BJP when he was sworn in as Devendra Fadnavis’s deputy chief minister before the formation of the MVA government in 2019, has made him as a perennial contender to switch sides in the eyes of the commentariat.

Hectic talk of an imminent split in the NCP was sparked off by Sanjay Raut’s column in Saamna on Sunday in which he wrote that Sharad Pawar had told him and Uddhav Thackeray that some of his MLAs were under pressure to join hands with the BJP after central agencies opened certain investigation against them. Pawar, wrote Raut in the column, also made it clear to them that he would not leave the MVA though some of his party leaders might. Raut’s revelation was followed by news reports which claimed that Ajit Pawar had obtained signatures of 40 MLAs who were ready to switch sides along with him. However, who these 40 MLAs were, was unclear.

“There is not an iota of truth in the speculation doing the round. There is no need to take any signatures from MLAs. Please stop these rumours. We are working as a family, and will continue to work together as a family,” said the former deputy CM, clearing the air after 48 hours. “If any decision has to be taken, it will be taken as a party, and right now the party has decided to strengthen the MVA and hold rallies across the state,” he told the media.

Earlier in the day, a slew of NCP MLAs like Anna Bansode, Manikrao Kokate Dilip Bankar and Amol Mitkari, had told the media that they supported Ajit Pawar which was followed by him meeting NCP MLAs Dhananjay Munde, Anil Patil, and Shekhar Nikam at his office at the Vidhan Bhavan which gave rise to speculation that he was putting together a roaster of his supporters.

“This has created confusion among the MLAs and among the party cadre. I want to tell all of them that NCP was formed under the leadership of Sharad Pawar to safeguard our self-respect. Since then, we have faced many challenges together. We will continue to work for the party until our last breath,” he insisted. Reports of him splitting the NCP, he said, was a deliberate attempt to divert attention from the issues of inflation, unemployment and crop damage besetting the state.

A senior NCP leader however told HT on the condition of anonymity that Ajit Pawar was miffed that Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray was being projected as the leader of MVA at their the recent rallies. This meant that in the eventuality the MVA came to power again, Ajit Pawar would not be considered for chief ministership, he disclosed. This disenchantment coupled with the Enforcement Directorate’s recent decision to drop Ajit Pawar and his wife Sunetra’s names from the charge sheet in the alleged Maharashtra State Cooperative (MSC) Bank scam added weight to the rumours.

At his own press briefing on Tuesday, state BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said they had received no proposal for an alliance from Ajit Pawar.