MUMBAI: Veteran political leader Sharad Pawar, who heads his faction of the NCP, said on Tuesday that the INDIA bloc is only for national elections, giving credence to reports that all is not well among the constituents of the opposition alliance.
Significantly, Sharad Pawar’s statement was in line with a recent statement by Sanjay Raut of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), who said that the INDIA bloc and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliances—comprising Sena (UBT), Congress, and NCP (SP)—were only meant for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
Sharad Pawar said, “There has never been any talk regarding state and local elections in the INDIA alliance,” adding, “Everyone will meet and decide on local body elections in the next 10 days.”
Earlier in the day, Sanjay Raut, while stating that it was difficult to form an alliance for local body elections, expressed confidence in the survival of the INDIA bloc and called on Congress, as the “larger partner” in the alliance, to take responsibility for maintaining unity among the opposition parties.
“In Delhi, the Congress and AAP think that they are big powers... In Maharashtra, also, we have said that the local body elections are of the workers. It is difficult to form an alliance there, but our alliance will remain intact in the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha (Maharashtra). Being the bigger party in the alliance, it is the responsibility of Congress to keep us together,” Raut said.
He added that there was nothing wrong with fighting elections against allies and cited the example of the Delhi assembly elections, where AAP and Congress are contesting against each other.
When asked about the AAP vs Congress dynamic in Delhi assembly polls, Sharad Pawar said that the “INDIA bloc was meant only for national elections.” He added, “Delhi is (Arvind) Kejriwal’s base. The people of Delhi have given the majority to his party twice in the elections, and that is why it would have been good if we could have done something by taking them into confidence.”
Meanwhile, the Congress has said that the party’s central leadership will decide whether it will contest solo or otherwise in the local body polls, the schedule for which is yet to be declared.
Recently, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had also echoed similar sentiments, saying that the INDIA bloc was meant for parliamentary polls.