Mumbai: Shiv Sena Member of Parliament and spokesperson Sanjay Raut has said, it will take ages to decipher what Sharad Pawar's utterances mean.
“One needs to be born 100 times to understand what Sharad Pawar truly means when he says something,” he said, speaking to the media on Tuesday.
Raut’s statement comes a day after the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar met Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi on Monday.
After the meeting, Pawar had said he did not have any political discussion with the Congress chief, as they had only discussed the ongoing agrarian crisis in Maharashtra. The statement generated immense confusion in the political quarters in the country.
However, Raut blamed the media for harbouring confusion. He also confirmed, all was well between the Sena and the Congress-NCP and that a stable government led by the Sena would soon be formed in Maharashtra.
“You (the media) don’t need to worry about Pawar and our alliance. A stable government will be formed by early December, and the Sena will lead the alliance,” added Raut.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had complimented the NCP on Monday for strictly adhering to parliamentary norms. This sparked off speculation over whether the NCP was aligning towards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to strike an alliance. However, the Sena spokesperson dismissed such claims.
“Sharad Pawar is a senior leader and there’s nothing wrong if the PM compliments him. Earlier, Modi had publicly announced that Pawar was his political guru,” stated Raut.
A joint delegation of Sena and NCP leaders led by Pawar would shortly meet Modi to discuss the agrarian crisis in Maharashtra, he added.
The BJP had blundered by snapping ties with its oldest ally, Raut said. The Sena had had no desire to ally with the BJP, but it was because of BJP chief Amit Shah's promise of equal power-sharing in government ahead of the Lok Sabha elections that Uddhav Thackeray had consented to the alliance, claimed Raut.
“It was only because of the Sena that the BJP was able to lay its foundation in Maharashtra. We gave them seats and always stood beside them. Now, they have changed our seats and will have to pay,” he asserted.
The Sena-BJP had fought the Lok Sabha and later the assembly elections together.However, in the assembly elections, the Sena had sought the post of CM and 50:50 power-sharing, but the BJP rejected the Sena's arguments.
The Sena is currently negotiating an alliance with the Congress-NCP, even as it has moved to the opposition benches in Parliament.