Mumbai: The future of the party would become brighter through the unity, unwavering loyalty and hard work of its workers and leaders, said NCP national president and Dy CM Sunetra Pawar while asserting that the party would never step back from its ideological and political struggles.Addressing party workers at the NCP’s 27th foundation day celebrations held at Mumbai’s Shanmukhananda Hall on Thursday, Pawar said, “We never turned our ships away after seeing storms, nor did we stop our steps in the face of adversity. The journey of the clock symbol will not stop now, and the Nationalist Congress Party will never retreat from the battlefield of struggle.”Referring to the first foundation day being observed after the demise of Ajit Pawar, she said the party remained committed to carrying forward the legacy of former Maharashtra chief minister Yashwantrao Chavan and building the developed Maharashtra envisioned by Ajit Pawar.Pawar said NCP’s ideology, rooted in the thoughts of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj, Mahatma Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar, was based on taking all sections of society together. She emphasised that every community had contributed to both the freedom movement and the movement for a united Maharashtra and that no section of society should ever feel excluded.Sunetra described Ajit Pawar’s discipline, leadership, decision-making ability, trust in party workers and commitment to common people as enduring values for the party.She reiterated that while the NCP worked in alignment with the national mainstream for Maharashtra’s interests, it would continue to uphold social harmony and ensure security and justice for minorities, backward classes, OBCs, tribals and all sections of society. Warning against divisive politics, she said the party would never encourage attempts to create divisions on the basis of caste or religion and would continue striving for social cohesion, even if political compromises became necessary.On local body elections, Sunetra stressed the importance of strengthening the organisation in both rural and urban areas and called for meticulous work on voter-list verification. “The voter list is the soul of the electoral process. No genuine voter of our party should be lost due to technical reasons or negligence,” she said, urging workers to implement the ‘My Booth, My Village’ concept effectively.
