Sharad Pawar’s shock announcement in May to step down as the chief of the Nationalist Congress Party was the fallout of the insistence by some leaders of the outfit to go with the BJP, said NCP working president and MP Supriya Sule on Thursday. Pawar saheb never wanted to tender his resignation, she said.
Sule was responding to questions about claims by Maharashtra minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who is with the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP, that it had been decided in the party that he would resign.
“Sharad Pawar was not ready to go with the BJP. It was decided that he would resign and Sule be made the party president so that NCP could tie up with the BJP and become a part of the government,” said Bhujbal in an interview with a Marathi news channel that was telecast on Wednesday.
Springing a surprise, Sharad Pawar on May 2 said that he was stepping down as the chief of NCP, the political outfit he founded and helmed since 1999.
He took back the decision after protests and mass resignations by stunned party cadres. Sule said her father never wanted to tender his resignation as the NCP chief. But when everyone in the party insisted on joining hands with the BJP, Pawar Saheb was hurt. He tendered his resignation. You (media) thought it was a drama, but for us it was reality. Later, party workers from the state urged Pawar Saheb to continue as president, she said. The Baramati MP said Sharad Pawar suggested setting up a committee to decide who would become the next president of NCP but it was Bhujbal who rejected the idea and urged the party founder to remain in the position.
Would you call him a tanashah’ (dictator) if he himself instructed the setting up of a committee to look for the next (NCP) president. (Had been a tanashah) he would have ordered that this particular person be made the party president, she said. Sule was referring to the alleged submission of the Ajit Pawar camp before the Election Commission on October 6 that Sharad Pawar ran NCP in an undemocratic manner and treated it as his fiefdom. Bhujbal reiterated four times during his interview Sharad Pawar’s statement all those who want to go with the BJP can go but he (Sharad Pawar) won’t go, said Sule. Sharad Pawar had no prior knowledge about the swearing-in of Ajit Pawar and eight other NCP leaders on July 2, she said. The decision (to join the Eknath Shinde-led BJP-Shiv Sena government) was taken by keeping him (Sharad Pawar) in the dark, she claimed. Asked if there was a proposal to make her the party president, Sule answered in the affirmative.
But that proposal upset me as had I become the president, the first decision the party would have taken was to go with the BJP. And it would have been impossible for me to execute it, she said. It was not possible for me to compromise on my ideology and my father, Sule said. I could not have lived with it. On the one side, there was power and on the other, there was struggle. I chose struggle over power. So yes, there was an offer of the NCP president’s position and Bhujbal saheb is correct about it, she said.
Asked about an alleged drug racket being operated from Pune’s Sassoon General Hospital, Sule took a dig at state home minister and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and said crimes go up whenever he is a part of the government. I am tired of asking for his resignation. He is a non-serious home minister. He is so busy breaking families and parties that he doesn’t have the time to look after his ministry, she said.
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