Mumbai: Amid uncertainty over the potential for a reunion between the 2 factions of the Nationalist Congress Social gathering (NCP) following the demise of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in Maharashtra, leaders on either side are actually ruling out the potential for such a transfer.
NCP (Sharad Pawar) MP Supriya Sule instructed the media that the difficulty of merging the Sharad Pawar-led faction and the Ajit Pawar-led faction was earlier mentioned with former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, who died in a airplane crash on January 28.
“A call made by Ajit Dada Now I am gone with him. What is the level of speaking about it (merger) when my brother is now not right here? ” she mentioned.
Her nephew and NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar reiterated Sule’s stand.
“This matter is over. We had the next assembly.” Ajit Dada. Whether or not to conclude an NDA Ajit Dada He’ll go away the alliance and take to the streets to struggle – that is what we mentioned with him,” Rohit mentioned.
“However now it’s Ajit Dada is gone, so it is irrelevant to debate this. For us, the merger difficulty ended the second he handed away,” he added.
Rohit mentioned leaders of different NCP factions are elevating the merger difficulty “solely to oppose Pawar Saheb, Supriya Sule and me, keep politically related and seem highly effective”.
He added that conferences on the difficulty used to happen on the residence of NCP (SP) chief Jayant Patil, and claimed that CCTV footage from the house of Bharatiya Janata Social gathering chief and Maharashtra Talent Improvement Minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha, whose residence is reverse Patil’s, may very well be proof.
After a gathering of NCP MLAs convened by Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar on Monday night time, the celebration’s state president Sunil Tatkare instructed the media that the merger was not on the agenda and MLAs have been instructed to not discuss in regards to the merger.
Instantly after Ajit Pawar’s demise, a number of NCP (SP) leaders mentioned that he was discussing the potential for merging the 2 celebration factions. Some, together with former Maharashtra dwelling minister Anil Deshmukh, argued that the merger was his “final want” and ought to be revered. However the leaders of Ajit Pawar’s faction have been extra cautious. Former Union civil aviation minister Praful Patel and others denied that Ajit Pawar had made such arguments throughout his lifetime.
For months, hypothesis had been rife that the 2 factions of the NCP would merge. The celebration’s fortunes started to say no after a poor efficiency within the 2024 parliamentary elections through which Sharad Pawar’s faction gained simply 10 seats within the 288-member Home.
In December 2025, the Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar factions ran collectively within the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal elections, however have been unable to regulate both municipality.
Each side had deliberate to contest February’s Zilla Parishad polls on a standard platform utilizing the identical image, a clock, and there have been talks of a proper merger after the elections. Nevertheless, the demise of Ajit Pawar on January 28 put a halt to those discussions.
Sharad Pawar instructed reporters that the merger is progressing and was scheduled to be introduced on February 12, however the two sides have now suspended talks.
(Edited by Shashank Kishan)
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