'He already has responsibilities': Sharad Pawar dismisses nephew Ajit is upset with new appointments in NCP

Sharad Pawar said two working presidents would enable in supervising the nationwide affairs of the party in a better manner. He said that if one person was asked to monitor all states, it would have been unjustified.

New Delhi: Hours after appointing Praful Patel and Supriya Sule as Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) presidents, party chief Sharad Pawar said that two working presidents were needed in order to monitor the nationwide affairs of the party even as he dismissed suggestions that Supriya Sule as working president has upset his nephew Ajit Pawar, asserting he himself had mooted the proposal.

"The suggestion was made by him (Ajit Pawar). So, where is the question of him being happy or unhappy," Pawar told reporters here to questions on the Maharashtra Leader of Opposition being upset about Sule's elevation.

Ajit Pawar was seen as an heir-apparent in the NCP, but his dalliances with the BJP, including an early morning swearing-in as Maharashtra deputy chief minister along with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in 2019, had not been received well by the party. "There is no vacancy now. We can talk about it when there is a vacancy," Pawar quipped when asked if Patel or Sule could become NCP chief in the future.

Responding to reporters, Pawar said that the current situation is such that it would be unjustified to allot the responsibility of all states to a single person. Patel has been given the responsibility to oversee party activities in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Goa and the Rajya Sabha. On the other hand, Sule is in-charge of the party affairs in Maharashtra, Haryana, and Punjab and in matters related to women, youth, students and the Lok Sabha.

Pawar announced the names of the two working presidents at the party's 24th anniversary. Patel, for whom the announcement was unexpected, said that he has been working with Sharad Pawar since 1999 and would continue to work hard. Talking to reporters here, Ajit Pawar said, "Some media channels ran stories that Ajit Pawar did not get any responsibility, I would like to tell them that I have the responsibility of leader of opposition in Maharashtra."

Asserting that he was active in state politics by choice, the former state deputy chief minister said, "For the past several years, Supriya is in Delhi. I am active in state politics. I have responsibility of the state since I am the leader of opposition."

The BJP was quick to take a dig at the announcement made by the NCP chief. "If only Sharad Pawar loved his nephew as much as Mamata Banerjee loves hers," BJP Information Technology Department in-charge Amit Malviya said on Twitter. Pawar also said elevating Patel and Sule was a "conscious" decision taken by the entire party.

"This is a conscious decision by the entire party and not me alone. If I had to make a decision, why would I have waited all these years," the NCP supremo shot back when asked about the allegations of nepotism. Pawar said there was "not even one per cent truth" in reports of Ajit Pawar being upset with the decision.

"Jayant Patil is already the president of Maharashtra unit of NCP, Ajit Pawar is the Leader of Opposition in the assembly. Praful Patel and Supriya Sule did not have any such responsibility in the party and were ready to devote time for the party," Pawar said. He said senior party leaders had made suggestions to the effect and the proposal was under discussion within the party for the past one month and he had only made the announcement on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Pawar confirmed that he will meet the Opposition leaders in Patna on June 23 and work on bringing the Opposition parties together to contest against the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. "On 23rd June, all of us opposition people will meet in Bihar and decide a programme. We will tour the whole country and present those programs in front of the people and we will focus on changing the condition of the country by showing the path of change to the countrymen," he tweeted.

The Opposition meeting is being led by Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar. Some of the Opposition leaders attending the meeting include Congress's Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray.