In a significant development, Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Wednesday claimed that six Members of Parliament (MPs) and several MLAs of Sharad Pawar's faction are in contact with them and would soon join the party.
Earlier, NCP (SP) leaders shave said that Ajit Pawar was trying to break his MPs. In this connection, an offer was also made from Ajit Pawar faction that the MPs should leave the father-daughter duo and join NCP(AP), the Sharad Pawar faction said.
On this, NCP (AP) spokesperson Suraj Chavhan had said that the allegations levelled by Sharad Pawar's party were baseless. He said, "We don't need anyone. MLAs and MPs of Sharad Pawar's party are meeting Ajit Pawar. Soon all these MLAs and MPs are going to change sides and join us. We are not calling anyone but if anyone wants to join us then he is welcome."
Earlier, Jitendra Awhad, NCP (SP) MLA and former state minister on Wednesday alleged that Sunil Tatkare, state chief of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, had asked MPs of the rival faction to "leave the father and daughter", an apparent reference to Sharad Pawar and his daughter, Baramati MP Supriya Sule.
Tatkare refuted the allegations, saying these statements were only an attempt by the NCP (SP) to keep its flock together following the rout it faced in the Maharashtra assembly elections in November 2024. Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut had also alleged that senior NCP leader Praful Patel and Tatkare had been assigned the task of engineering defections in the Sharad Pawar-led faction.
Currently, the Ajit-led NCP has only one Lok Sabha MP, Tatkare, while the rival NCP (SP) has eight Lok Sabha members. "The party (NCP) will not get any post in the Union government unless they manage to secure defections from the Sharad Pawar-led faction," said Raut.
