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NCP will form Maharashtra govt: Pawar

Pankaj Updhayay in Kolhapur

Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar has expressed confidence that his party, with the help of other friendly parties, would have no problem in forming the government in Maharashtra.

He also said that the NCP would win the maximum number of Lok Sabha seats in the state and consequently play a vital role in the formation of the next Union government.

Speaking to newspersons after addressing his party's inaugural election rally at Kolhapur yesterday, Pawar predicted that no single party would win a clear majority in the forthcoming general election.

Rubbishing opinion polls that have given the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance over 320 seats, he said these were ambitious guesstimates.

Pawar rejected 'opposition propaganda' that he was working on a post-poll alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. He said there was no question of his party joining hands with either the BJP or the Congress and that he stood by what he had said in this matter at the NCP's first rally at Shivaji Park in Bombay.

Pawar, who will file his nomination papers today at Pune, said he would be able to cover 22 districts of the state in the first phase of the election in the state in a whirlwind tour that would mean just two hours of sleep everyday for him. However, he said that it would not be possible for him to cover all constituencies.

Earlier at the rally, which was attended by over 40,000 people, Pawar launched a scathing attack on the BJP and the Congress. Blaming the ruling party for the infiltration in Kargil, he said the incident amply showed how worried the government was about national security.

However, he said, the Congress demand for a debate while the war still raged in Kargil was most inappropriate. He said now that the intruders have been pushed cross the Line of Control, a discussion was necessary to pinpoint the lacunae that led to the intrusion.

Pawar claimed that it was his independent line of thinking on vital national issues that had led to his ouster from the Congress party. He said Congress leaders, surrounded as they are always by sycophants, cannot tolerate people with independent minds. ``It was Sonia Gandhi herself who had sought the opinion of party leaders on the Opposition making her foreign origins an election issue. However, when we (myself, Tariq Anwar and P A Sangma) gave our frank opinion we were thrown out of the party.''

He said it would be a matter of shame if a country of 900 million people elected a person not born in India as its leader.

Pawar said the Congress does not belong to any one person or a family and that a clutch of people cannot manipulate the party forever.

Speaker after speaker at the rally, primarily Lok Sabha and assembly candidates from Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara districts in western Maharashtra, referred to Sharad Pawar as the prospective prime minister.

Pawar at the press conference, however, said his party would have to work hard to build its base in other parts of the country. ``The first step in this direction has been taken,`` he told a reporter, ''we are fielding 150 Lok Sabha candidates all over the country,'' he said.

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