Poll outcome would not have bearing on Maharashtra: Sharad Pawar

The poll outcome from the five states would not have any bearing on the future of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance in Maharashtra, NCP founder-president Sharad Pawar said.

The opposition BJP, which was forced to sit out of power after the 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls, had been very aggressive against the MVA dispensation, hitting it out on multiple occasions on various issues.

Pawar, however, had ruled out any problems to the state government, of which he is the chief architect. “There would not be any impact,” he said.

Pawar, a four-time Maharashtra Chief Minister and three-term Union Minister having handled portfolios of Defence and Agriculture, said that opposition parties need to be together to give an alternative to the BJP.

Also Read: How BJP mastered the alphabets of return to power

“I am not saying this will happen tomorrow itself. The Parliament's session will resume on 14 March. We will be there for around a month. So we will sit together, discuss and decide the future course of action,” he said.

The statement assumes significance in wake of the fact that Telangana Chief Minister and TRS founder K Chandrashekar Rao has been meeting top leaders opposed to BJP. Last month, Rao had met Pawar and Thackeray and he is in touch with several party presidents and chief ministers.

Pawar also said Punjab results were a shock for the Congress. “Punjab is a State where Congress was in power…the change in Punjab (where AAP swept the polls) is not favourable to the BJP (either). The result gives a shock to the Congress,” he said.

“The AAP's governance in Delhi (led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal) helped it in Punjab as the common people living in the national capital have accepted the Kejriwal-led party,” the veteran politician said.

Shiv Sena chief spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut too echoed similar sentiments. “The Congress party has lost badly in these elections. We didn't get the expected results. In Punjab people got another option and elected AAP. BJP's win is a victory for their election management too,” Raut said.

Watch the latest DH Videos here: