NCP leaders meet Amit Shah without Sunetra Pawar and son Parth, party denies internal rift

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) denied any rift in the organisation on Monday, a day after a meeting of some of its senior leaders with Union home minister Amit Shah in the absence of top party leaders Sunetra Pawar and Parth Pawar sparked a buzz.

NCP national working president Praful Patel, Maharashtra unit chief Sunil Tatkare, senior ministers Chhagan Bhujbal and Hasan Mushrif, and senior leaders Dilip Walse Patil and Dhananjay Munde, among others, met Shah late on Sunday.

According to a section of party insiders who did not want to be named, some leaders were not happy with the way the NCP was being managed by Maharashtra deputy chief minister Sunetra Pawar and her son, Rajya Sabha member Parth Pawar.

The leaders who met Shah had rallied behind Ajit Pawar when he decided to split the NCP in 2023.

Party insiders said that the leaders again had a meeting at Bhujbal’s official residence after returning to Mumbai on Monday evening, before proceeding for a core committee meeting that was scheduled at Devgiri, the official residence of Sunetra Pawar.

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NCP refutes rift claims

NCP spokesperson Umesh Patil played down the buzz over differences in the party. He said Sunetra Pawar and Parth Pawar had met Shah earlier to discuss issues confronting the party following former NCP chief Ajit Pawar’s death.

During that meeting, Sunetra Pawar had personally informed the home minister that a delegation of senior party leaders would be meeting him and requested him to make time for the interaction, Patil said.

“The leaders also raised issues concerning their respective constituencies during the meeting. The interaction included informal discussions and an exchange of views between leaders of the Mahayuti alliance partners,” he said.

“The reports suggesting Sunetra and Parth Pawar had been deliberately kept out of the meeting were part of an attempt by unseen forces to create an artificial narrative of a leadership crisis,” it stated. “This is nothing but deliberate mischief,” the statement added without naming anyone.

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The clarification came amid speculations over the party’s internal cohesion following the death of former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar in an air crash in January.

After Sunetra Pawar took charge as the NCP national president, she introduced a series of organisational and constitutional changes, including the removal of leaders such as Praful Patel as the national working president and Sunil Tatkare as the Maharashtra state president.