The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday said that he did not ask his party members to be ready for mid-term polls.
It was reported that predicting the fall of the newly-formed government, Pawar had asked his party legislators to pay more attention to their respective constituencies and gear up for mid-term election.
In a riposte, CM Eknath Shinde had said, “Sharad Pawar is a big leader, but whatever he says is just the opposite of fact. So, we will complete 2.5 years of governance. Next time, we will have 200 MLAs; 100 ours (Shiv Sena led by him) and 100 BJP's.”
However, now the NCP chief has said that he never made the mid-term poll remark and just asked them to be prepared for the polls in general.
Last month, a majority of the Sena MLAs, led by Eknath Shinde, rebelled against the party leadership, asking it to snap ties with the NCP and the Congress.
The revolt in the party led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led government.
On June 30, Shinde was sworn in as the chief minister, while BJP's Devendra Fadnavis took oath as the deputy CM.
Since the revolt, both the factions, led by Uddhav Thackeray and CM Shinde, have repeatedly claimed to be the real Shiv Sena.
(With iputs from agencies)
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
