The Leader of Opposition from Maharashtra and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar on Tuesday put a full stop on the speculations about his shift from the National Congress Party (NCP) to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He affirmed that he is not leaving the NCP and that no signatures of any MLAs have been obtained to support the speculated shift.
“I am with NCP, not going anywhere. Nobody took the signatures of any MLAs. These are all baseless speculations,” said Ajit Pawar while addressing the press conference in Mumbai. The leader turned furious and stated that several rumours are being spread about his shift from the NCP to the BJP. “I don’t know why people are speculating about my shift from the party. All these are sheer rumours,” he said.
He also added that several media channels said that he would be joining the BJP. “I don’t understand who spread this. I never said this. These rumours do nothing but affect the working of the party members. I request people to stop spreading the rumours,” Pawar said.
Earlier today, a report was published by the New Indian Express claiming that Senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar had attained the consent of his party’s 40 MLAs for his decision to join hands with BJP. “The signatures of these MLAs are also taken as voluntary consent,” tweeted NIE reporter Sudhir Suryavanshi.
Big development: Senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar gets consent of his party’s 40 MLAs for his decision to join the hand with BJP. The signatures of these MLAs are also taken as a voluntary consent. @NewIndianXpress #Maharashtra pic.twitter.com/HjQMD6JP17
— Sudhir Suryawanshi (@ss_suryawanshi) April 18, 2023
The same was lauded by Nikhil Wagle, a journalist and Maha Vikas Aghadi government sympathiser. The journalist congratulated NIE reporter Sudhir Suryavanshi for breaking the Ajit Pawar news which mentioned that the leader had attained the consent of about 40 of the 53 NCP MLAs. The report also speculated that Ajit Pawar would step into CM Shinde’s shoes assuming that the Supreme Court would disqualify the Sena lawmakers who had rebelled against Uddhav Thackeray.
Congratulations @ss_suryawanshi for breaking Ajit Pawar story in @NewIndianXpress .
— nikhil wagle (@waglenikhil) April 18, 2023
Pawar dismissed all the speculations and said, “You all are spreading much news of me. There is no truth to it. I want to clarify that there are no facts about 40 MLAs in support of me and have issued a letter of support this is untrue. There is no truth in my taking the signatures of 40 MLAs. Under the leadership of Sharad Pawar, NCP was established and we will continue to work under his leadership. This is an attempt to mislead the people and divert the issue from the core.”
He also blamed the Maharashtra government over the death of 13 people due to sunstroke at the Maharashtra Bhushan ceremony organised at Kharghar in Navi Mumbai on Sunday. “This was not a natural but man-made calamity. The government is responsible for the incident”, he said in a statement. He has demanded that the persons responsible should be booked and the incident should be probed by a retired judge.
Notably, Ajit Pawar’s statement came hours after NCP supremo Sharad Pawar dismissed speculations about Ajit Pawar’s political move. He said that no meeting of the party MLAs had been called in the matter. Earlier, when asked whether NCP would form an alliance with BJP, the NCP supremo had said that it was difficult to predict the future. “Nothing can be said about what will happen in the future,” he was quoted.
