Pune:
State Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Jayant Patil on Sunday claimed that a number of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs who were formerly with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and had defected to the BJP prior to the Maharashtra Assembly election were eager to come back to the NCP fold.
Speaking to newspersons ahead of NCP core committee meeting held at Pune, the state NCP president claimed “about 15 to 20 MLAs including NCP leaders who switched alliances with the BJP before the polls, and a number of Independents, are in touch with us. However, we are not interested in conducting a mega bharti (recruitment) and these MLAs would only be taken into our party on merit”..
Refusing to reveal any names, Patil said that the decision to take such MLAs back into the party would only be reached after taking into confidence, and soliciting the opinions of, the local leaders of their (MLAs allegedly in contact with the NCP) constituencies and the youth leadership within the party. He emphasized that the NCP would never form a government with the BJP considering diametrically opposite ideologies of the two parties.
When asked how the NCP could then explain its moves to form a government with the rightwing Shiv Sena despite opposing ideologies, Patil said that the prevailing mood among party workers was that “a brick (Shiv Sena) is softer than a stone (BJP).”
“From mulling over giving support to the Sena from the outside, we are now actively discussing on how to form a government together.
However, a common minimum programme of all three parties (Sena, NCP and Congress) would be decided in Delhi only after a meeting by the heads of all parties,” he said. Patil remarked that while efforts were on to form a government as per the wishes of the people, the result had to be a stable government.
A secret understanding between the BJP and the NCP before the 2014 general elections had resulted in the crumbling of the hitherto unbroken polar alliances in Maharashtra, the Sena –BJP (since 1989) and the Congress-NCP (since 1999). In the aftermath of the 2014 Maharashtra Assembly poll result, the NCP had eagerly offered unsolicited outside support to the then minority BJP government while its traditional saffron ally, the Sena, had dithered.
Meanwhile, the NCP’s core committee meeting, chaired by Pawar at his Pune residence saw the participation of all top brass including Ajit Pawar, Jayant Patil, Dhananjay Munde, Supriya Sule, Chhagan Bhujbal and Sunil Tatkare among others.
“The meeting dwelt upon the prevailing political situation in the State and on the question setting up an alternative government in the State and the end of the President’s Rule. Pawar will be meeting Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday (November 19), NCP and Congress leaders will sit and hold another round of discussions to come to a consensus on the issue of government formation,” said Nawab Malik, after the meeting which went on for a marathon three-hours. He said that things would be clear only after Pawar’s meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi.
Meanwhile, Swabhimani Paksha chief Raju Shetti, who met with Pawar ahead of the NCP core committee meet, announced that his party would be supporting the ‘Maha Shiv Aghadi’ (Congress-NCP-Sena grand coalition) in order to keep the BJP out of power. “Our fight is for farmers and the BJP has time and again proved itself to be against their interests…so, we will be supporting any coalition which keeps the BJP out of power,” said Shetti.
