Referring to a passing remark in the ‘Saamana’ and ‘Dopahar Ka Saamana’ on Monday that Pawar had failed to create a succession line in the NCP, Pawar countered by saying, “they do not know what we are doing in our party”.
“What we decide in our party is our internal matter… Our colleagues know how our party will move forward and we are satisfied with what we are achieving. They (Saamana Group) have a right to write and criticise, we don’t consider it important from our viewpoint,” declared Pawar in a direct snub at Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut.
He made it clear that in the NCP, his colleagues say many things, express different opinions and debate, but they don’t go out and publicise it as these are internal issues.
“All my colleagues are clear that tomorrow a new leadership will be ready in this party…In 1999, when we came to power with the Congress, the NCP had many new names in the cabinet like Jayant Patil, Ajit Pawar, Dilip Valse-Patil, or R.R. Patil, who was a first-timer. They proved themselves,” asserted the NCP supremo.
Pawar also slammed Bharatiya Janata Party’s Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Congress’ former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s recent comments on the NCP.
To Fadnavis’s plea asking the voters in Karnataka to ‘send the NCP parcel’ back to Maharashtra, Pawar dismissively said that Fadnavis knows how to play word games without doing any work.
On Chavan’s allegation that ‘NCP is the BJP Team B in Karnataka’, Pawar hit back at the ally, asking what was his standing in the Congress, whether it is A, B, C, his colleagues would reveal in private.
Dwelling on the tricky issue of seat-sharing talks for the upcoming Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in the Maha Vikas Aghadi, Pawar said that he will soon meet former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and state Congress chief Nana Patole in the matter and it was necessary to rope in the PWP and the Left parties in it.
“There may be differing opinions, but that doesn’t mean we have any misunderstandings,” referring to the dark murmurs in political circles on the MVA’s purported squabbles on many issues.
Pawar paid homage to the late educationist, Padma Bhushan Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil (1887-1959) on his 64th death anniversary earlier in the day at his memorial, and later addressed a meeting of students and teachers of the Rayat Education Society founded by him in 1919, which has now grown to over 700 educational institutions serving the poor in the state.
IANS