Maharashtra Congress chief alleges NCP wants to ‘finish-off’ the party

  Tensions between allies Congress and NCP continue to simmer as Patole complains to party high command

Tensions between the Maharashtra government allies Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) continued to simmer, with Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole accusing the latter of trying to “finish-off” the Congress and aid the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since the inception of the three-party ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’ (MVA) coalition in late 2019.

Mr. Patole further said that he had conveyed instances of the NCP’s ‘treachery’ to the Congress’ high command during the recently-concluded three-day Chintan Shivir of the Congress in Udaipur in Rajasthan.

“The way in which the NCP has been behaving with the Congress for the last two-and-a-half years since the MVA’s formation, be it showing discrimination in the allocation of funds or poaching the Congress members to the NCP in the Bhiwandi civic body, the trouble they have caused during the Amravati bank election or the Bhandara-Gondia Zilla Parishad election. It looks like they have been consistently attempting to stamp out the Congress at the local and the State level,” alleged the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief, observing that the three-party MVA ought to run on ideas and not merely for holding on to power.

Mr. Patole further alleged that the NCP was helping the BJP to grow by weakening the Congress, which shares power with the Shiv Sena and the NCP in the tripartite MVA.

“When this government was formed, it was done so on the rationale to stop the BJP. But if NCP is supporting the BJP, then this is an insult to [Congress President] Sonia Gandhi and we will not tolerate this. We have communicated all the problems the NCP has caused for us and a decision on this will be taken by the high command in a few days,” said the MPCC chief.

He, however, refused to comment on Deputy Chief Minister and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar’s style of functioning, remarking that the intention was not to target any individual within the NCP.

A war of words has erupted between Mr. Patole and Ajit Pawar ever since the NCP covertly allied with the BJP in the Bhandara-Gondia ZP election.