Mumbai | Senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Praful Patel on Friday said his party is firm on working under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership, and ruled out a larger alliance with the Sharad Pawar-led party, with which it has entered into a tie-up for municipal elections in Pune.
The NCP, led by Ajit Pawar and part of the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra, and the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) have formed an alliance for the January 15 municipal corporation elections in Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad and Parbhani.
“We are firm on working under BJP's and Narendra Modi's leadership. Our alliance is only with the BJP and NDA,” Patel told PTI in an interview.
“We work under Modi's leadership in Delhi and under the leadership of CM Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra. Not much should be read into these (municipal level) local alliances,” the former Union minister said.
Asked if his party will support former Union minister and NCP (SP) leader Sharad Pawar if he were to seek re-election to Rajya Sabha after his tenure in the Upper House of Parliament ends in three months, Patel said, “No, actually, you see, his party has got enough legislators to elect one candidate.” “This is not for us to decide whether Mr Pawar is elected, whether by his party or all the opposition parties put together. That is their call, and we have nothing to do with it,” Patel said.
On his party leader and Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar's remarks in an interview to PTI that “party-hopping” has become rampant in politics, with leaders being lured or forced into switching sides, Patel said, “You must remember that local elections in Maharashtra are taking place after nine years, and therefore there are a lot of aspirants.” “Everybody feels that he wants to contest. Now, if his party is not able to give him a ticket, he moves to another party,” he said.
“Also, if some party does not have the appropriate candidate and gets a ready-made good candidate, they also take such candidates. My point is, this is a local election. Not much should be read about party-hopping as far as these elections are concerned,” Patel said.
Asked about BJP's "shat pratishat BJP" (100 per cent BJP) slogan and the future of alliance politics, Patel said, “Every party has a right to grow, and obviously they will want a larger space.” In politics, the endeavour is to win every vote and every seat. But that doesn't really happen like that,” he said.
“Today, the BJP, a party at the national level, has alliances in different states with different parties. In the 2020 Bihar assembly elections, the BJP got double the number of MLAs compared to Nitish Kumar's party, but since it was an alliance, they decided that Nitish Kumar shall be the leader of the alliance, and therefore made him the CM,” Patel said.
This time, the story is different, the senior NCP leader said.” “When we (NCP) made an alliance with the BJP, Eknath Shinde was the Chief Minister, and BJP and Shinde had an absolute majority (in the assembly,” Patel said.
“There was no need for any extra MLAs or a third party to stabilise the government. But after we discussed, decided, there was a mature, sincere conversation between us and the BJP leadership, it was decided that we will go into alliance with them, and we happily accepted the proposal,” he said.
“So my point is that politics of alliances don't work only on numbers or on convenience,” he said. “I feel that BJP has a very mature process, a very sincere process to carry its allies along,” he added.
On the possibility of his being inducted into the Union Cabinet, Patel said, “Such a buzz is only in the media. I have no idea, and I don't think anybody should speculate on such things. After all, whoever is to be inducted is the prerogative of the Prime Minister. I don't think I have either sought any position or my party has been sounded out for any such position.”
