Sharad Pawar: PM Modi offered to form alliance in Maharashtra but I refused

Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to consider forming a government with his Bharatiya Janata Party after the Maharashtra Assembly elections in 2019 threw a fractured mandate.

Speaking at a book launch hosted by The Indian Express group, the Maratha leader said he was not in favour of such an alliance and told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that 'it was not possible'.

At the event, hosted to mark his 81st birthday, Pawar said he told the Prime Minister right in his office that an alliance with the BJP was not possible and he would not like to keep them in the dark.

Pawar said, after the assembly election results, he had made a what he called “mischievous” statement that NCP was seriously considering support for BJP and this probably sowed doubt in the mind of Shiv Sena, which stepped forward for an alliance with Congress and his party.

The former union defence minister denied that he had sent his nephew Ajit Pawar to team up with BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis in what turned out to be an aborted bid to form a government. Pawar said if he had sent Ajit Pawar to BJP, then he would not have done an incomplete job.

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