
“There are some questions here. There seems to be less consistency,” Sharad Pawar said in an interview to Marathi newspaper Lokmat when asked if the people of the country were willing to accept Rahul Gandhi’s leadership.
On the question of Rahul becoming a “hurdle” for the Congress, Pawar said the leadership of any party depends on what kind of acceptance he or she has within the organisation. “If you look at the mentality of the rank and file of the Congress even today they have a sense of affection for the Gandhi-Nehru family. Because Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are representing the family, the majority of cadre in the party are behind them,” Pawar said.
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Pawar also said that while opposing the BJP, the Opposition needed to temper its attack on a particular person and instead come up with its own alternate vision of governance to reach out to people. “Attacking a particular person will not work. When we speak about creating an alternate we need to come up with an alternate vision of what we will be offering the people and what our programmes will be,” Pawar said on the issue of how the Opposition could put up a united front against the BJP.
On the issue of succession within his own party Pawar said that his daughter MP Supriya Sule was more interested in national politics. “Her interest is not in state politics she is more interested in national politics,” Pawar said.
On the issue of who will lead the party after him Pawar said that the NCP had groomed many young leaders. “We have many young leaders. We have people like Ajit Pawar, Jayant Patil, Dhananjay Munde who are capable of leading the party.”