Sharad Pawar's clever remark on who will represent NCP now; 'inspiration', tweets Supriye Sule

During a press conference after Ajit Pawar's rebellion, a journalist asked NCP supremo Sharad Pawar about who would now represent the party, to which the veteran leader said "Sharad Pawar" following which the entire presser broke into laughter.

Pune:On the day his party took a body blow, veteran politician Sharad Pawar remained composed and even managed to amuse a room full of journos and supporters with a clever remark. The departure of several leaders, led by his nephew Ajit Pawar, dealt a stunning blow to the party. However, during an evening press conference following these events, a journalist inquired about who would now represent the party, alluding to the vacant Leader of the Opposition position in the Maharashtra Assembly previously held by Ajit Pawar.

Without missing a beat, the 82-year-old leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) confidently replied, "Sharad Pawar," accompanied by a smile and playfully raising his hand in the air as if marking his presence. This moment, captured by cameras, was celebrated by his followers, including his daughter and MP Supriya Sule.

During the same news conference, Sharad Pawar announced that the party would take disciplinary action against members who defected to the BJP-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra, led by Eknath Shinde. Ajit Pawar's move to become Deputy Chief Minister and the subsequent induction of eight senior NCP members as ministers caused a seismic split within the party, plunging it into a crisis.

Reacting to it, Pawar senior said Ajit and other NCP MLAs joining the Shinde government was a robbery. "...It is not googly, it is a robbery. It is not an easy thing. The allegations levelled by Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) against the party...Now (he) has done an important work of exonerating some of the leaders from those allegations," Pawar said.

He was replying to a query whether the surprising move by nine NCP leaders was a game-plan of the BJP or a googly that he talked about recently. Over the past few days, Pawar and the BJP were engaged in a war of words over the events surrounding the short-lived government in 2019 in Maharashtra, in which Ajit Pawar had taken oath as the deputy CM, while BJP's Devendra Fadnavis as the chief minister.

On Thursday, Pawar said "certain things were done" after the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections to expose the BJP and show how far it can go to gain power. He said his father-in-law (Test player Sadu Shinde) was a googly bowler, and he himself (Pawar) was the chairman of the ICC. "So, without playing cricket, I knew where and when to bowl a googly," the NCP chief said that day.

His statement was in reaction to the claim made by Fadnavis in an interview to a news channel that Pawar had agreed to form a government with the BJP in 2019, but the latter backed off after three-four days. After Pawar's 'googly' remark, Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule took potshots at him saying that the NCP chief had hatched a political conspiracy in 2019 and tried to destroy Ajit Pawar's political career by making him part of that conspiracy. Bawankule, however, said it was Pawar's "last googly".