No need to declare MVA’s CM face before Maharashtra elections: Sharad Pawar
Pawar said that the decision will be based on the number of seats won by the MVA partners Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP)
Mumbai Going against the wishes of his ally Uddhav Thackeray, NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said that the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance will decide on a chief minister only after the assembly elections in Maharashtra. Pawar said that the decision will be based on the number of seats won by the MVA partners Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP).
Speaking at a press conference in Kolhapur on Wednesday, Pawar said, “There is no need to deliberate on the issue at this moment. Several times in the past, a decision on the leadership has been taken based on the number of MLAs of the coalition partners.”
Notably, his remarks come at a time when the Shiv Sena (UBT) has been pitching for Uddhav Thackeray as the chief ministerial face of the opposition alliance. On August 17, Uddhav Thackeray at the birth anniversary program of late former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in Mumbai, had said, “Leaders like Prithviraj Chavan and Sharad Pawar are present here.. I want to tell them that they should decide the name of the CM. I will support anyone picked up by the Congress and NCP (SP).” However, responding to Pawar’s remarks, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray insisted there was no dispute within the alliance. He said the MVA was committed to fight for the protection of the interest of the people of Maharashtra. “There is no dispute among the partners. Our sole aim is to defeat the Mahayuti alliance. They are selling Mumbai and Maharashtra and our aim is to throw them out of the government.”
On Wednesday, Pawar also chose to use the general elections in 1977 post Emergency as an example. Pawar said, “Jayprakash Narayan urged all to come together who are against the Emergency. After polls, Morarji Desai’s name was declared as prime minister but during the polls, Desai’s name was not used for seeking votes.”
The Congress also supported the stand taken by Pawar. “We are going together as MVA and based on the number of seats the decision on the chief minister will be taken after the polls,” reacted Nana Patole, state Congress president.
With inputs from Saurabha Kulshreshtha
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‘Fadnavis is distorting history of Shivaji Maharaj’
Pawar also slammed deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for presenting a false history of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and accused him of creating a misunderstanding in the society. “Going against the real situation, the deputy chief minister made a different statement in which he implied that Shivaji Maharaj did not engage in looting of Surat and claimed that the history is being presented incorrectly. False history should not be presented to the public and to the new generation. When someone tries to present an incorrect history, it creates misunderstandings in society,” he remarked.
He was responding to Fadnavis’s remarks in which he had said that the Maratha king had not looted Surat in Gujarat and that successive Congress government made them believe the wrong history.