NCP founder Sharad Pawar said on Friday that though he will not contest any elections henceforth, he will continue to work for the party, continue to do social work and continue to be active in politics as the mentor for the younger generation of his party leaders.
“I have been a Rajya Sabha member for a long time. I will not contest again even for Rajya Sabha when my term ends about two years from now. However, I will be active in politics and work for the expansion of my party in various parts of Maharashtra,” Pawar told to an OTT platform.
Just three days ago Pawar said in Pune district that he has decided to retire from electoral politics. This was reported in national media as Sharad Pawar's announcement of retirement. On Friday Pawar clarified that he meant to say that he will not contest elections but will continue to work for his party.
Asked about who will be the chief minister if the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) gets a majority, the NCP founder said, “It all depends on who gets how many seats and my view is that the party that gets the maximum seats should be eligible to appoint its leader as chief minister”. This statement by Pawar can be considered as an indication of what discussion is happening inside the MVA over appointing their chief minister in case they win a majority number of seats in the next assembly.
Speaking about the controversy about NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal reportedly saying that he crossed over to the NDA alliance because of pressure from the Enforcement Directorate and the reactions coming nationally to that, Pawar said that it is known to all that many leaders were under a lot of pressure from the central agencies of the Central government. “We have been saying this for a long time. This is not happening only in Maharashtra but in many other parts of the country. Many other leaders also have been saying similar things”, he said.
Speaking about the roll out of direct benefit schemes (DBT) by the Mahayuti government, Pawar said that he recently met a group of women living in the rural parts of Western Maharashtra and they said that because of massive inflation and their young children getting no jobs since the past three years, the money coming in DBT schemes has become meaningless and it gets spent on household expenses.
