Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar had separate meetings with Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Sanjay Singh yesterday amid speculation that the Congress and AAP could still come together in Delhi to fight the Lok Sabha elections.
Probed by journalists, Singh, a confidant of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, said the meeting was held to discuss how anti-BJP parties should stand together over certain issues despite having differences.
Refusing to go into details, he said it was the time to save the nation. “We all can save our parties later.”
Asked about an alliance with the Congress in Delhi, Singh said: “The alliance question is hypothetical. Talks do not take place on ifs and buts. We have introduced our candidates who are working hard on the ground. We are also working to win all the seven seats.”
The Congress is known to be divided over allying with the AAP in the Lok Sabha polls. While former chief minister Sheila Dikshit is bitterly opposed to any relationship with the AAP, a section of the Congress wants a tie-up with Delhi’s ruling party.
Dikshit said yesterday that Delhi Congress “was capable of doing everything by itself” and said no one had spoken to her about any alliance.
Stressing that she was not in favour of an alliance, she, however, said she will follow any instructions from the party leadership.
Apart from the situation in Delhi, Gandhi and Pawar are also learnt to have discussed the alliance between their Congress and NCP in Maharashtra.
The two leaders are also learnt to have discussed the broad contours of an alliance among opposition parties for the Lok Sabha elections, including that in Bihar, where there has been no announcement of seat sharing so far among opposition parties.
The NCP is seeking Bihar’s Katihar seat, where its sitting MP Tariq Anwar has joined the Congress.
The NCP meanwhile suffered a jolt when Ranjitsinh, son of party MP and former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, announced he would join the BJP today.
Addressing his supporters in Solapur, Ranjitsinh asked: “How long should they tolerate injustice? Now is the time to take the final decision.”
He praised the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in his brief speech.
Earlier this morning, in a tweet he had sought “guidance from the party workers” who have supported the Mohite-Patil family for decades, amidst a tussle with his 75-year-old father to grab the NCP Lok Sabha ticket from Madha.
“You tell me what to do: Should we bear with it (‘injustice’), or hit back for our future, progress and development? You decide, and it will be my decision,” Ranjitsinh said, in an emotional build-up to the meeting of his supporters.
Ranjitsinh decision will be the second major shock for the NCP which last week tottered on the brink - Parth Ajit Pawar had announced that he would be a contender for Maval Lok Sabha seat.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party chief M K Stalin (right), party secretary T R Balu (centre) and women’s wing secretary M Kanimozhi, hold the party’s manifesto during its release for the forthcoming general election at the party’s headquarters in Chennai yesterday.
