'Will make NCP national party again': Sunetra Pawar unanimously elected as chief of party

Mumbai: Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister Sunetra Pawar, who formally took over as the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) national president on Thursday, vowed to make the 27-year-old outfit a “national party” once again — a mission undertaken by her late husband Ajit Pawar.

At the especially convened Rashtrawadi national executive following the death of Ajit Pawar, the NCP president and then deputy chief minister, senior leaders and his close aides slammed the NCP (SP), albeit without naming their leaders.

In an emotionally charged address, the 62-year-old Sunetra Pawar said “Ajit Dada is no more with us but we have to accept it. For me, Parth and Jay are not the only family but the entire NCP” — leading to thunderous applause from the leaders who had come from different corners of the country.

“I had been with Ajit Dada for 40 years. He was a man like the Sahyadri mountain ranges, today, his ideas, ideals and legacy are with us,” she said, reiterating commitment to the ideology of ‘Shiv-Shahu-Phule-Ambedkar’.

“We have to make Rashtrawadi (NCP) a national party again… in NCP, every worker is the NCP president… let us all work together… Ajit Dada’s dreams were cut short… it is our responsibility to fulfill Ajit Dada’s dreams… Rashtravadi is not just a party but a ‘vichar’…,” she said.

NCP working president Praful Patel proposed Sunetra Pawar’s name for the vacant post which was adopted unanimously with people raising their hands.

Patel was reelected as the national working president while Raigad MP Sunil Tatkare was reelected as the Maharashtra unit president.

Patel also announced Parth Pawar’s candidature for the ensuing biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha.

Besides Patel and Tatkare, others who spoke include senior leaders Chhagan Bhujbal, Dilip Walse-Patil, Hasan Mushrifand Dhananjay Munde — who all told party workers to make efforts to take the party to new heights and make it a “national party”.

“We are a national party but we lost the status,” he said in what was a dig aimed at NCP founder and now NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar.

“In Lok Sabha polls there was a jolt to us, but in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly polls our performance was good. We performed well in Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh…we have to win elections in one more state and scale the performance to retain the status of national party,” he said.

“We all worked for Ajit-parv… now I declare that we all will work for Sunetra-parv,” said Tatkare, who was one of Ajit Pawar’s close aides.

Without naming NCP (SP) leaders, Bhujbal said that some people are spreading false narratives. “They tell us what the hurry was (in making Sunetra Pawar the NCP legislature party leader and deputy chief minister)…then what was the hurry in raising issues like merger when the funeral is yet to be held,” said Bhujbal, a senior minister. "Everyone would have been happy if the full family had been with her when she took over (as the deputy chief minister) under difficult circumstances," he said.

“Ajit Dada’s dream was to expand the NCP across the country, take it to new horizons…it is all your responsibility also…get MLAs elected in other states also,” he said.