Sharad Pawar snubs Shiv Sena's mouthpiece Saamna, says leaders groomed by him in NCP proved their mettle

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar snubbed Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) over an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamana and said leaders groomed by him had already proved their mettle in state politics and that everybody in NCP knows how to take the party forward.

Pawar’s comments came a day after an editorial in the Marathi publication said Pawar has failed to create a successor who could take his party forward. The editorial was based on Pawar’s recent decision to step down as NCP president, which he withdrew after three days after it caused consternation among party leaders and workers.

We do not attach any importance if someone is writing about whether we create new leadership or not. It is their prerogative (to write), but we ignore it. We know what we are doing, and we are satisfied with it, Pawar said.

They ( Shiv Sena-UBT) do not know what we have done. It is our speciality that in NCP, we all work as colleagues and dwell upon various issues. At times, different opinions emerge (among us) but we do not go out and make them public. It is our family issue. Everybody in NCP knows how to take the party forward, and they know how the new leadership has been groomed in the party, he said.

In that cabinet, Jayant Patil, Ajit Pawar, Dilip Walse Patil, R R Patil, and others became ministers from NCP. It was their first term in power. As far as I am concerned, I worked as a minister of state when I started, and after working as a junior minister, I was promoted. But the names suggested by me were inducted as cabinet ministers at that time. And Maharashtra witnessed how NCP ministers proved themselves through their work, he said.