New Delhi: NCP President Sharad Pawar held a meeting of the party's national executive at his Janpath residence in New Delhi on Tuesday and later tweeted that he had a detailed discussion on "our future policies, our role in the Lok Sabha elections and current national issues."
Among various issues, the 2-hour long meeting also discussed the BMC elections next year and state Assembly elections to be held next year," party general secretary Praful Patel told reporters. The meeting was attended among others by Pawar's MP daughter Supriya Sule and Sunil Tatkare.
It was also clarified that the NCP is not hosting any meeting of the opposition leaders as the invitations for a meeting at Pawar's residence have gone out from the Rashtra Manch, a forum created by Yashwant Sinha in 2018, and not from the NCP. Pawar only agreed to host the meeting on the request of Yashwant Sinha, who is now a vice-president of the Trinamul Congress, saying the meeting as such is "highly overrated and speculative."
Some of the NCP leaders, who were here for the national executive meeting, reportedly approached Pawar to clarify this since a wrong message has gone out as if he is trying to float a Third Front, minus the Congress, which may even adversely affect the Shiv Sena-led Aghadi government in which both Congress and NCP are partners.
The party leaders said Pawar was himself disturbed that a wrong message may impair the unity of the opposition parties as he asked both Praful Patel and Supriya Sule to clarify the correct position to Rahul Gandhi that there is no move to create a front minus the Congress against Prime Minister Modi. Rahul Gandhi had expressed an uneasiness at a press conference here in the morning when asked about the meeting planned by Pawar at his residence in the evening.
