“Sharad Pawar is a big leader, he is very respected. However, the traitor (Eknath Shinde) brought down our (MVA) government and now you are holding a party meeting inside his office. By holding such meetings, the credibility of a big leader will fall,” said Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut.
Pawar was in the assembly to attend an all party meeting on the Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute. Once the meeting ended, Pawar held a ‘courtesy’ meeting with Shinde in his chamber. Once the meeting was over, Pawar met his party MLAs inside Shinde’s office. NCP-SP said they decided to hold the meeting in Shinde’s office as they didn’t want Pawar to walk to NCP-SP office due to his old age.
Raut contended that “NCP-SP’s office is nearby. You could have held the meeting at YB Chavan Pratisthan too. Was the entire Vidhan Bhavan unavailable that you had to hold the meeting there? This has hurt us.” Referring to the NCP split, Raut said, “We would not have held a party meeting inside (the late) Ajit Pawar’s office because, according to us, he has betrayed Sharad Pawar. We would have kept the betrayal in mind. We would have followed MVA principles.” State NCP-SP chief Shashikant Shinde said: “We are firmly in MVA. They should not doubt us. Our meeting was a spontaneous one; it was our MLAs who floated the idea of holding the meeting at Shinde’s office due to Pawar Saheb’s health.”
