Will contest Lok Sabha, Maharashtra polls under NDA umbrella: Ajit Pawar

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) would contest the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha under the umbrella of BJP-led NDA, Deputy CM Ajit Pawar said.

The rebel nephew of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar comes more than one-and-a-half-months after he switched over to NDA camp post quitting the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).

“We would contest the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections together (with the BJP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena),” Ajit Pawar said addressing a mammoth rally of the NCP in Beed in Marathwada region of Maharashtra.

“People will criticise when you take stand…but once you have taken a stand, you have to respond through work,” he said.

Ajit’s statement comes days after Sharad Pawar asserted that he was the national president of NCP while Jayant Patil is the Maharashtra unit president.

Besides, the NCP supremo also shut doors for his nephew by saying, “Opportunities cannot be given to him again and again and it should not be sought as well.”

Both the NCP's Sharad Pawar-Supriya Sule-led group and the Ajit Pawar-Praful Patel faction had claimed that they are the original party and that there is no split in the 25-year-old political outfit.