New Delhi: Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday spoke to NCP boss Sharad Pawar and extended their support to the Maharashtra veteran, who faced a coup from his nephew Ajit Pawar. “Rahul and Kharge have spoken to Sharad Pawar over the phone and extended their support to him,” AICC secretary in charge of Maharashtra Ashish Dua told ETV Bharat.
“We are keeping an eye on the developments. If the majority of MLAs go with Ajit Pawar, the NCP party organisation would still be with Sharad Pawar as he built the party from scratch and nurtured it. Rahul and Kharge connecting to Sharad Pawar would send a strong signal not only in the state, but across the country. There is a crisis in the NCP and we must extend a helping hand,” he said.
Rahul and Kharge called up Sharad Pawar shortly after the news of Ajit Pawar taking oath as the new Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra ‘shocked’ the leaders of the NCP, Congress and Shiv Sena UBT, all allies in the Maha Vikas Aghadi that came into power in the western state in 2029 and remained in power till last year.
Sharad Pawar was the architect of the MVA alliance in 2019 and was able to convince both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi to support Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray as the new alliance Chief Minister. It was Pawar, who guided Uddhav to drop the Sena’s long-standing alliance with the BJP and opt for a new chapter in Maharashtra politics. Initially, Sonia Gandhi was reluctant to back Uddhav as Chief Minister, but later agreed to Pawar’s proposal.
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The MVA was ousted from power in 2022 when Sena rebel Eknath Shinde became the Chief Minister with help from the BJP. Since then, Sharad Pawar has been playing a crucial role in Rahul Gandhi’s plans to forge an anti-BJP platform at the national level ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Pawar, who is an ex-Congress, had also rebuffed West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee’s attempts to forge a federal front of regional parties minus the Congress earlier, saying the grand old party could not be isolated from any such platform. The first such meeting of 15 like-minded parties took place in Patna on June 23 where Pawar and his daughter Supriya Sule, also the working president of the NCP, had attended the do.
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According to party insiders, Ajit Pawar, who had been left out of the NCP’s succession plan announced by Sharad Pawar, was miffed over the opposition meeting. Interestingly, the NCP coup took place days before the next opposition meeting in Bengaluru, which is slated for July 14. Though Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is being credited for organising the Patna show, Pawar’s role in the scheme of things could be gauged from the fact that he, and not Kharge, announced that the second meeting of the 15 like-minded parties would take place in Bengaluru on July 14 instead of Shimla on July 12 when the grand old party was to host the event.
According to party insiders, though Pawar put up a brave face after the coup by his nephew, the Maratha veteran looked “vulnerable” and would get “distracted” by the NCP split, which would consume much of his time and energy, said the Congress insider said and added that it would not be good news for the larger opposition unity plan.
