A number of MLAs, who defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) prior to the Assembly elections, are in contact with the Sharad Pawar-led party, NCP State president Jayant Patil claimed on Sunday.
“As many as 15-20 MLAs, including NCP leaders who switched alliances to the BJP before the polls and a number of Independents, are in touch with us. However, we are not interested in conducting a mega bharti (recruitment) and these MLAs will only be taken into our party on merit,” Mr. Patil said, ahead of the NCP’s core committee meeting in Pune.
Refusing to reveal any names, he further said the decision to take such MLAs back into the party would only be reached after taking into confidence local leaders of their constituencies and the youth leadership within the party.
Differing ideologies
He emphasised that the NCP would never form a government with the BJP, given their adversarial ideologies. When asked how the party could then explain its moves to form a government with the rightwing Shiv Sena, Mr. Patil said the reigning spirit among party workers was that “a brick [Shiv Sena] is softer than a stone [the BJP].”
“From mulling over giving support to the Sena from the outside, we are now actively discussing on how to form a government together. However, a common minimum programme of all three parties [Sena, NCP and Congress] would be decided in Delhi only after a meeting by the heads of all parties,” he said, remarking that while efforts were on to form a government as per the wishes of the people, the result had to be a stable government.
A clandestine understanding between the BJP and the NCP before the 2014 general elections had resulted in the crumbling of the till then unbroken Sena-BJP (since 1989) and Congress-NCP (since 1999) alliances.
In the aftermath of the 2014 Assembly poll result, the NCP had offered unsolicited outside support to the then minority BJP government while the Sena dithered.
Core committee meets
On Sunday, the NCP’s core committee meeting, chaired by Mr. Pawar at his Pune residence, saw the participation of the party top brass, including Mr. Patil, Ajit Pawar, Dhananjay Munde, Supriya Sule, Chhagan Bhujbal and Sunil Tatkare.
The meeting went on for three hours.
