Ajit Pawar Downplays Rumours Of Congress-NCP Merger After Sushilkumar Shinde’s Remark

Senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar on Wednesday downplayed the rumours of Congress-NCP merger after Sushilkumar Shinde’s remarks suggesting both parties to come together, terming them “his personal views.” Speaking on the sidelines of an event, Ajit said that Shinde is a senior leader and had expressed his “personal opinion”.

“He (Shinde) is a senior leader of Congress and he had expressed his personal opinion. I heard what he said, and according to me, he had expressed what he thinks, which is his right,” he said.

Shinde, who calls NCP chief Sharad Pawar his political guru, on Tuesday said that that the Congress and the NCP will come together “because now they are also tired and we are also tired”.

However, Ajit said that both parties have come together to fight the Maharashtra Assembly elections and he would not want to confuse party workers by making any statements on the issue.

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“I don’t want to confuse the party workers of both the NCP and the Congress by making any statement on what he (Shinde) said or thought,” he said.

The former deputy chief minister said the Congress and the NCP had fixed their target to win more than 175 seats out of the total 288 constituencies in the October 21 Maharashtra assembly elections.

Shinde’s statement about the NCP and the Congress coming together assumed significance given that both the parties are struggling to withstand the BJP blitzkrieg. Pawar had formed the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) after walking out of the Congress in 1999.

(With inputs from PTI)