NCP leader asks those opposing Ajit Pawar’s family to quit party amid rift speculation

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) lawmaker and former minister Manikrao Kokate on Tuesday said the late party leader Ajit Pawar’s family would have the final say, and those opposing its decisions should leave the party. He added that “such elements” cannot be allowed to ruin the NCP, as he credited Pawar, who died in a plane crash in January, for working tirelessly to build a strong base for the party across Maharashtra.

Kokate maintained there will be no split in the party as its entire rank and file is with deputy chief minister Sunetra Pawar, who succeeded Ajit Pawar as the NCP leader, and her family. Kokate, a family loyalist, refrained from naming any leaders.

The comments came two days after a group of NCP leaders met Union home minister Amit Shah in Delhi, fuelling speculation of turmoil within the party after it failed to win a seat in the Maharashtra legislative council polls.

The party denied any rift, saying the meeting with Shah in the absence of deputy chief minister Sunetra Pawar and her son, Rajya Sabha member Parth Pawar, was pre-arranged and a formal engagement.

A NCP leader who attended the meeting said the leaders expressed unhappiness over how Sunetra and Parth Pawar were managing the party. He added that talks about a merger with the Nationalist Congress Party – Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP–SP) were not the focus of the meeting.

Sunetra and Parth Pawar are opposed to any merger with the NCP-SP, which is part of the Opposition Congress-led bloc. A week earlier, Sunetra and Parth Pawar met Shah in Delhi and expressed their opposition to a merger.

Rumours of a rift within the NCP began after Sunetra Pawar took charge as NCP chief in February. The subsequent removal of leaders such as Praful Patel as national working president and Sunil Tatkare as Maharashtra state president were among her most contentious moves. She clarified that the omissions were inadvertent, but the changes were not reversed

On Monday, an NCP statement rejected reports of internal differences, describing them as incorrect, baseless and misleading. NCP leader Umesh Patil said Sunetra Pawar and Parth met Shah earlier and discussed issues confronting the party following Ajit Pawar’s death.

The statement said Sunetra Pawar informed Shah that a delegation of senior party leaders would meet him and requested him to give them an appointment. It added that the delegation discussed issues concerning the leaders’ respective constituencies, matters related to the state and organisational issues. “Attempts are being made to give an unnecessary political twist to the meeting and create a narrative of internal differences and lack of coordination within the party.”

The party alleged that certain forces were attempting to manufacture an artificial narrative of a leadership crisis and urged the media not to portray speculation as fact.