Industrialist Gautam Adani was present during meetings between leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the undivided Nationalist Congress Party five years ago, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar told The News Minute-Newslaundry in an interview published on Monday.
Pawar was asked a question about his shifting political allegiances after the 2019 Assembly elections in Maharashtra. The Nationalist Congress Party leader then mentioned a series of meetings that took place around November 2019, before BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as chief minister and Pawar as his deputy.
“It has been five years,” said Pawar. “Everyone knows where the meeting happened, that it happened in Delhi at a businessman’s house.” Pawar said that a total of five meetings were held at the time.
“Everyone was there,” he said. “Let me tell you again. [Union Home Minister] Amit Shah, Gautam Adani, [Nationalist Congress Party leader] Praful Patel, [BJP leader] Devendra Fadnavis, and [Nationalist Congress Party chief at the time] Sharad Pawar. Everyone was there.”
Pawar added: “Everything was decided. The blame has fallen on me. I have taken the blame and let others be safe.”
This was in reference to the meetings that took place when Pawar tried to split the Nationalist Congress Party in 2019 and partner with the BJP to form the government in Maharashtra, reported The News Minute-Newslaundry.
Pawar was successful and took oath as the deputy chief minister on November 23, 2019. However, the alliance did not last more than three days and he returned to the Nationalist Congress Party, which formed the state’s Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
The undivided Shiv Sena, the undivided Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress were part of the alliance.
The coalition government collapsed in June 2022 when a group of Shiv Sena MLAs led by Eknath Shinde rebelled and formed the government with the BJP. This split the Shiv Sena into two factions, with one led by Uddhav Thackeray and the other by Shinde, who became the chief minister.
A year later, Ajit Pawar, along with several Nationalist Congress Party MLAs, also joined the ruling coalition. This split the Nationalist Congress Party, with one faction supporting his uncle Sharad Pawar and the other backing Ajit Pawar.
When asked why Sharad Pawar did not ally with the BJP in 2019, Ajit Pawar said: “Sharad Pawar is the kind of person whose mind can never be predicted. Not a single person in the world can predict. Not even our aunty and neither Supriya [Sule, his daughter].”
Ajit Pawar’s statements come days before the Maharashtra Assembly elections on November 20. The counting of votes will take place on November 23, alongside that of the Jharkhand elections.
Supriya Sule, leader of the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party, said that she had no knowledge of the meeting that Ajit Pawar was referring to, reported The Indian Express.
“Let me be very clear that I have absolutely no knowledge of any such meeting of the attendees which he has mentioned in the interview,” said Sule.
Rajya Sabha MP and Uddhav Sena spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi wrote in a social media post on Tuesday: “As per an interview given to a digital platform by a senior minister in the cabinet, Gautam Adani has sat through in meetings to decide how to get BJP to power in Maharashtra by trying to fix unlikely alliances. It raises some serious questions: Is he a BJP authorised negotiator? Has he been given the responsibility to fix alliances? Why is a businessman so keenly and closely working to bring BJP to power at any cost in Maharashtra?”