MUMBAI: Former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar was re-elected as the party’s legislature group leader on Wednesday at a meeting of party legislators.
“If all the party colleagues would have remained firm with the party, we would have been able to bring back the government,” Pawar said while addressing party legislatures after being reelected to the post.
“We shall be more aggressive as the opposition in the house and be the real voice of the people in the state,” he added while describing the party’s line of functioning over next five years.
Pawar also pointed out that the total number of opposition MLAs in Maharashtra assembly has increased as a result of the party’s strategy to support a few other candidates in some constituencies. “This will add a dent to the opposition attack,” he added.
State NCP chief Jayant Patil, who spoke before Pawar, too made it clear that his party and its ally Congress will sit in the opposition in Maharashtra, as mandated by the people.
“We have been asked to sit in the opposition by the people and we will discharge that duty,” Patil said.
Patil’s comments came amid talks of the possibility of the NCP backing the Shiv Sena in government formation, as the Uddhav Thackeray-led party’s relationship with ally BJP seems to have strained over the issue of power-sharing in the next state government.
Meanwhile, Congress leaders who huddled today at state party headquarters here decided to meet governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Thursday with a charter of demands for the farmers in the state. The untimely rains have caused huge losses to the farmers, the party leaders said. Fadnavis had already directed the state administration to conduct surveys of the loss due to untimely rains and start the process to compensate farmers for the losses.