Leader of Opposition in the legislative assembly Ajit Pawar said NCP was the big brother now, as they had 54 seats and Congress had 44 seats. His comments assume significance considering the ongoing talks between the MVA partners over seat sharing. "If you have power, then our weightage will be more in MahaVikas Aghadi.
Earlier, Congress had more seats, so we had to take the role of the younger brother during negotiations. But now the situation is different. We are the big brother. Congress has 44 seats, while we have 54," he said while addressing a meeting of the NCP workers in Kolhapur on Saturday. Speaking at the Dhairyaprasad Hall, Pawar said like-minded parties have to come together. "An analysis of Karnataka election shows that Janata Dal Secular votes decreased. The BJP votes remained almost the same. The change was that the JDU votes went to Congress and they succeeded," he said. Later, while speaking with the media, he said the intentional rumours are spread about MLAs changing parties to divert the attention from serious issues like inflation, farm produce prices, gas cylinder, fuel prices and unemployment.