Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar on Sunday warned the Congress that his party will have to rethink about being part of the UPA in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections “if it continues to belittle us.”
Mr. Pawar was speaking at a convention organised by the Kerala unit of the NCP here.
Referring to the Gujarat Assembly election outcome, he said the NCP fought the polls alongside the Congress and against the BJP. Though the Congress had allotted nine seats to the NCP, in five of them the Congress fielded its own candidates. And in the other four, Congress rebels contested. This was one of the reasons for the BJP’s return to power in that State.
“This is not the way to work together,” he said. If such things continued to happen, the NCP would reconsider its alliance with the Congress. “We have certain problems with the Congress,” Mr. Pawar said. “Our experience [of working with the Congress) is not very good.” It was unfortunate that the Congress had not ‘taken seriously’ some NCP suggestions on the government policy. The NCP joined the UPA with a view to checking the BJP-led communal forces coming to power.
