Pawar pledges support to Congress - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

A day after Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar resigned from his position as Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister, triggering a spate of resignations from all NCP ministers in the state, party president Sharad Pawar on Wednesday allayed rumours of rift between the coalition partners, both at Centre and state levels. Addressing a news conference here, Pawar reiterated his party’s support to the Congress party. “Regarding NCP’s support, we continue to support the government in Delhi and Maharashtra . There is no question of withdrawing support. It is true that NCP leader in Maharashtra has resigned from his post of Deputy CM. There was a NCP meeting, where he was asked to reconsider his resignation,” he said. Denying the mass resignations of all NCP ministers in Maharashtra government as a pressure tactic, the Union Agriculture Minister said, “It is natural for supporters to react emotionally, but the senior leadership is responsible to take sensible actions. We have told them that their resignations would not be accepted and they will have to run the government.” Earlier, a crucial meeting of NCP legislators called to discuss the situation in the aftermath of Ajit Pawar’s resignation on Wednesday wound up within 20 minutes with a call to him to take back his papers. The meeting ended with the legislators unanimously adopting a resolution requesting Pawar to withdraw his resignation. It was decided that state NCP president Madhukar Pichad would convey the sentiments of the legislators to party chief Sharad Pawar who would take a final call on the resignation by the deputy chief minister. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan it yet to accept Pawar’s resignation.

Sharad Pawar pledges support to Congress