The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may want Ajit Pawar's NCP to contest the coming assembly elections separately to eat into the Opposition's votes, NCP (SP) leader Rohit Pawar claimed on Thursday. He said the saffron party might offer Ajit Pawar only 20 of the 288 assembly seats, and the latter could then walk out of the ruling alliance.
"To keep Ajit Pawar out may be a strategy of the BJP, or both BJP and Ajit Pawar group. He may contest separately to divide the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi's votes, especially those of NCP (SP). But the people and the MLAs in Ajit Pawar's party are not fools," he said.
Rohit, however, said that the people have shown in the Lok Sabha elections that they would not entertain "vote cutters".
Sharad Pawar's NCP had the better strike rate in the general elections as it won 8 of 10 seats. Ajit Pawar's NCP could win just 1 of 4 seats offered to it.
Overall, the opposition MVA bagged 30 of 48 seats, reducing the Mahayuti to just 17 while 1 seat went to an Independent.
Rohit repeated his claim that 18 to 19 MLAs of the Ajit faction were in touch with Jayant Patil and Sharad Pawar. "The two leaders will decide who should be inducted back into the party," he added.
Meanwhile, a BJP office-bearer from Shirur in the Pune district has sought the removal of Ajit Pawar's NCP from the ruling alliance, which also consists of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena. A video of Sudarshan Choudhary, the BJP's Shirur tehsil vice president, making the demand at a party meeting recently has gone viral, leading to a backlash from the NCP.
"It is a suggestion to you. Listen to what party workers are thinking. If you really want to make a decision, remove Ajit Pawar from the Mahayuti (ruling alliance)," Choudhary tells the BJP leadership in the video. He also said that some senior leaders could have become ministers and others could have been made head of state-run corporations if Pawar was not part of the ruling dispensation.
NCP's Amol Mitkari has already sparked speculation regarding the possibility of the Mahayuti members contesting the assembly polls independently if each constituent insists on demanding 100 seats. At an event on Tuesday evening, Mitkari emphasised the impracticality of accommodating such demands within the 288-seat Maharashtra assembly.
"If each constituent adamantly insists on contesting 100 assembly seats in the upcoming state elections, then the parties will have to contest separately. With only 288 assembly seats available, being offered only 55 seats would be unacceptable for the party," said Mitkari, who is an MLC and NCP spokesperson.
(With inputs from PTI)