While working for Opposition-unity at the national level, NCP founder Sharad Pawar crafted the Maha Vikas Aghadi - an anti-BJP coalition in Maharashtra - but some issues had clearly annoyed the veteran politician which include his nephew Ajit Pawar walking into the BJP camp for three days and the abrupt decision of Uddhav Thackeray to quit without fighting in the legislature.
In the revised edition of his memoirs - Lok Maze Sangati - which deals with the Indian and Maharashtra politics post-2015, Pawar has mentioned several issues including his nephew walking out.
It may be mentioned after the fractured mandate in the October 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls, when the MVA was being crafted and was in the final stages of execution with Thackeray in the saddle - Ajit walked out without informing his uncle.
On 13 November 2019, the junior Pawar was sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister with Devendra Fadnavis as the Chief Minister. The government was short-lived and collapsed in just three days as the veteran politician ensured that his MLAs returned to the party.
Pawar has mentioned this incident in the book - and it was clear that he was shattered.
“I was shocked when I got a call on November 23, 2019, around 6.30 am that Ajit and a few NCP MLAs were at Raj Bhavan and Ajit was taking oath with Fadnavis. When I made calls to a few MLAs who were at Raj Bhavan, I got to know that only 10 MLAs have reached there and one of them told me that it is happening because I support this,” he wrote referring to the swearing-in by the then Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.
According to him, it was a plot by the BJP central leadership to fail the MVA experiment.
“I called Uddhav Thackeray immediately and told him that whatever Ajit has done is wrong and NCP and I don't support that. My name was used to take NCP MLAs to Raj Bhavan,” he wrote.
It may be mentioned, Ajit later returned to the party fold.
Over the years, Ajit has refrained from speaking on the issue.
Pawar, who is also the chief architect of the MVA, also spoke about Thackeray. “We all knew that there would be desperate attempts (by the BJP) to break this alliance. The government collapsed because Uddhav resigned without giving a fight,” he wrote about the June 2022 revolt of the Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde and the toppling of the NCP-Shiv Sena-Congress alliance government, which was in power for two-and-a-half years.