NCP

“A small trailer of this was already shown to the people of the state earlier this week in Kolhapur and Pune… They are forgetting that the ordinary workers of the NCP are still with Saheb. Whatever Pawar Saheb says is the final word for us,” he said. Slamming the BJP, Patil said that it is indulging in the politics of stealing and splitting parties in the state and elsewhere for their own benefit.

New and second Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar inaugurated his party office near Mantralaya this morning and installed a large portrait of his uncle, whom his NCP faction has also continued as the party President. Since the past three days, the NCP Ajit Pawar group has been invoking Sharad Pawar’s name for many purposes which has apparently peeved the latter.

Some of them were very close to Sharad Pawar who personally mentored, nurtured and stood by them -- a few even faced probes by Central agencies -- through thick and thin for decades. As the party grew, so did these leaders who were given plum positions within the party and in the successive governments -- with Congress from 1999 to 2014 and later in the Maha Vikas Aghadi regime of Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena from 2019-2022.

This time, the political war is being fought with an in-house rival - his nephew Ajit Anantrao Pawar, labelled as the "culprit" who broke the party to sup with the “enemy camp” of ruling Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party.

Earlier in the day, speaking to IANS, Janata Dal (United) leader KC Tyagi said, "Session of Bihar assembly will take place from July 10, in such scenario the meeting might be postponed to a fresh date."

Nearly four years later, Ajit Pawar again sent the MVA into a post-luncheon tizzy, this time by splitting the NCP to join the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party regime of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Fadnavis, as the second Deputy CM – a first for the state, though a fifth time for himself.

Indicating that he may be ‘down but not out’, Sharad Pawar, 83, declared that notwithstanding the split engineered by his over-ambitious nephew, he would again rebuild the party from scratch. Asked that henceforth, “who could be the most reliable face of the party”, without batting an eyelid, Sharad Pawar raised his right hand and quipped: “Sharad Pawar!”

Addressing a crowded media conference, Ajit Pawar, 64, who took oath as Deputy CM for the 5th time, said that the entire NCP is with him and he had blessings of everyone in the party. Giving a peek into the top-secret political drama which erupted on Sunday, Pawar revealed that he had already resigned as the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s Leader of Opposition in the Assembly on last Friday.

Talking to media persons here, Pawar said that the meeting was planned in Shimla on July 11-12, but owing to weather and heavy rains in Himachal Pradesh, the venue has been shifted to Bengaluru. This will be the second meeting after June 23 when over 15 national opposition parties had met in Patna to chart out the strategy to challenge the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

There were loud protests and demonstrations, burning of 'Khokhas' (slang for Crore rupees), raising slogans and condemning the ruling ally Shiv Sena for its actions that led to the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government headed by former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray in 2022.