Dilip Walse-Patil gives a clarification on his statement that ‘Sharad Pawar single-handedly cannot bring the party to power in Maharashtra’. He said people of Maharashtra have not given majority mandate to NCP to come to power independently. Instead, the NCP had to tie up with other political parties to form a coalition government.
Stating that “his words were misinterpreted without understanding their meaning”, Dilip Patil, a close aide of Sharad Pawar, said, “I think the media has got it wrong. In my speech yesterday, I didn’t criticize Honorable Sharad Pawar Sahab or say anything wrong about him.” Dilip Walse Patil in a post yesterday on X (earlier Twitter) said that, in yesterday’s speech, the media misrepresented the issue without understanding the political analysis.
Apologizing to Sharad Pawar, Patil said the people of Maharashtra should have supported the NCP chief. He further said, “My point was that when we had such a great leader, the people of Maharashtra should have stood by him. Yesterday I expressed regret that this did not happen.” He said in a tweet, ‘No wrong word or any criticism is possible from my side towards Respected Pawar Sahab, however, I apologize for any misunderstanding that may have arisen.
Addressing party workers in Ambegaon taluka, Patil said, “We always say that there is no tall leader like Sharad Pawar in the country, but the people of Maharashtra never gave him majority and never made him the chief minister on his own.”
Apart from this, he also said that other regional parties are moving forward on their own, but NCP is lagging behind. Mamta Banerjee and Mayawati became the Chief Ministers but we have to forge an alliance with someone or the other. The regional party is moving forward on its own, but 60 to 70 of our MLAs get elected and we have to form alliances with others.
Dilip Walse-Patil further said – We have not joined BJP, NCP is our own party, we are in NCP only. The Election Commission will decide who will get the name and symbol of the party, after which there can be a stir in the politics of the state. “We spoke to Sharad Pawar twice before taking the decision to join the government, but when there was no response from there, we had to take this step,” Patil said.
Sharad Pawar had earlier also alleged that some NCP leaders have joined hands with the BJP as they were under threat from “agencies”. They were told that if you join us (BJP) then nothing will happen in your case, but if you do not join, you will be shown a different place (jail).
The crisis in the NCP arose a few months ago when Ajit Pawar (the then Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly) switched sides and joined the Eknath Shinde-BJP government and was sworn in as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Along with Ajit Pawar, 8 other NCP MLAs took oath as ministers.