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- Last Updated: Thursday, 22 January 2015 21:05
Maharashtra elections 2014 : No question of going along with BJP, says NCP chief Sharad Pawar
Mumbai: In Maharashtra, where all parties are still coming to terms with broken alliances, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar has dismissed any possibility to form an alliance with BJP. "There is no question of going with BJP," Pawar clarified over reports that the NCP may tie up with the Bharatiya Janata Party, which also called off its alliance with the Shiv Sena, ahead of the Assembly polls in Maharashtra.
Pawar also maintained that the party wanted to keep the 15 year long alliance with Congress intact but the state leadership kept them waiting for too long. "The entire rank and file of the NCP wanted an alliance but a situation was created by the state leadership that the alliance had to be called off. In 2004, our numbers were more than the Congress but still accepted a Congress minister," he said.
Blaming the Congress for the fillip apart of the alliance, the NCP chief said, "Congress said they will get back on the proposal. We told Praful Patel to coordinate with the CM. He was kept waiting. CM never met. Few days later, the Congress released the list of their own candidates. We were left with no choice," he said.
Pawar also said that they are not yet ready for the elections. "We were prepared to contest for 130 seats but the alliance was called off at the last moment and now we have to contest on 280 seats and we are not prepared. We do not have enough publicity materials," he said.
On a personal level, he maintained that his equation with Chavan is good. "But as an administrator, my NCP team was generally unhappy with Chavan. He did not take any decisions. Not to take decisions was his specialty. Under this leadership we have no future, is what the party workers felt," he said.
Pawar on Friday also said that he had no grouse against Congress President Sonia Gandhi as she was not responsible for breaking the alliance. "When I called on Sonia Gandhi to discuss fighting Maharashtra jointly she was positive about the proposal. It was decided to hold talks at the state level to sort out seat sharing issues," he said.