All eyes on Sharad and Ajit Pawar as both NCP factions to celebrate 26th foundation day in city today

Last week, NCP chief spokesperson Amol Mitkari added fuel to the ongoing speculations when he said with Lord Vithal's blessings, the cousins might come together before ‘Ashadhi Ekadashi’

Both the parties have not declared their agenda for the meeting (File)

EVEN as both the factions of NCP are all geared up to hold foundation day celebrations on June 10 in Pune city, all eyes will be on Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar as to what stand they take on the possible merger or coming together of the two parties. Leaders and workers of both the factions are anticipating a decisive articulation of their party’s position on the speculations that the two might come together in near future.

The NCP was formed in 1999 by Sharad Pawar who walked away from the Congress along with PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar after openly opposing Sonia Gandhi as party president. In 2023, his nephew Ajit Pawar dealt him a severe blow as he walked away with 40 MLAs and joined hands with BJP and Shiv Sena to form the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra.

On Tuesday, both the parties will hold separate foundation day celebrations. The parties will celebrate the 26th foundation day. While Sharad Pawar-led NCP (S-P) will hold its foundation at Balgandharva Rangmandir from 10 am, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP will hold its celebrations from 3 pm at Balewadi stadium.

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Sharad Pawar will be addressing the party workers around 1 pm while Ajit Pawar is expected to address party workers around 3 pm. From NCP (S-P), Jayant Patil, who is the state president of the party, Baramati MP Supriya Sule, Jitendra Ahwad and Rohit Pawar are expected to address the party rank and file, among others. For NCP, besides Ajit Pawar, Sunil Tatkare and Praful Patel, among others, will speak.

Both the parties have not declared their agenda for the meeting. However, Sunil Tatkare, state president of NCP, denied that merger of the two NCP factions or coming together are on the agenda. “’Those things are not on our agenda. We will be discussing the forthcoming civic and local government elections and how the party should prepare for it. We will speak about the future road map for the party,” Tatkare said.
NCP leader Mahesh Tapase said, “Our party has also not announced any agenda. Whatever stand Pawar saheb takes, we will follow that. He will lay out our road map…I am not sure whether the merger issue will come up or not.”

For over a month now, speculations have been rife about the possible coming together of the two factions of the NCP. While Ajit Pawar has refused to articulate views, Sharad Pawar has said that his daughter Supriya Sule will talk to party leaders and workers about it. Sule on her part said she will be discussing the issue with party workers and leaders.

Last week, NCP chief spokesperson Amol Mitkari added fuel to the ongoing speculations when he said with Lord Vithal’s blessings, the cousins might come together before ‘Ashadhi Ekadashi.’ However, Sunil Tatkare reprimanded him, saying he should not speak out of turn. “I advise Mitkari to adopt caution when he gives out statements on behalf of the party. Mitkari is party’s spokesperson. I want to tell him that once the party’s position has been articulated by party president, others should not do so.”

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Tatkare said, “NCP is now in Mahayuti and NDA. We are committed to our alliance. There will be no change in it…If anyone wants to come with us, they can do so under the current arrangement.”

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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