Will accept Election Commission’s decision: Ajit Pawar on NCP disqualification pleas

Ajit Pawar’s statement comes in the wake of the disqualification petitions that both factions of the NCP — one led by the Deputy Chief Minister and the other led by his uncle and NCP chief Sharad Pawar — have filed against each other’s legislators to claim rights over the party’s name, election symbol, and most importantly, political legacy.

The second round of the fight between the two sides is set to begin from October 6 as both sides begin presenting their case to the Election Commission (EC).

On the reservation for minority communities in education and jobs, Ajit Pawar said every alliance has a common minimum programme while in power. “I joined the BJP and Shiv Sena alliance after a year it came to power. The leaders of both the parties told me that I was committed to the overall development of the state and that all of them can work together. However, the ideologies of all the alliance partners are different. So, if any issue arises over which there is a difference of opinion, we would sit together and resolve it,” said Pawar.

The NCP leader ruled out the alleged talks of disqualification of 16 Sena MLAs and the possibility of Eknath Shinde’s supporters losing their legislative membership. “There’s no truth in these discussions. These talks have been going on ever since Eknath Shinde became the Chief Minister,” he said.

Pawar’s statement was in response to the disqualification pleas that Speaker Rahul Narwekar started hearing against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and other Sena MLAs on Monday.

When asked about his becoming the Chief Minister in case of the disqualification of MLAs, including Shinde, Pawar said, “There’s no point discussing this until the final decision is announced. I am a person who thinks about development, not about all this.”

The Deputy CM said the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadanvis government had announced recruitment to 75,000 government posts. “When I joined the government, I took a review and found that 1.5 lakh posts were vacant in different departments. So we have decided to fill 1.5 lakh posts, including those in revenue, police, education, and health departments. We have given a go-ahead for the recruitments and the contractual posts are only filled until permanent recruitments happen,” said Pawar adding that the recruitments would take place in phases.

While reacting to the protests by teaching-job aspirants over the government’s school adoption plan, as part of which private donors, corporations, or NGOs could adopt the schools and contribute towards infrastructure enhancement, Pawar said that it wasn’t a plan to privatise schools.

“Some people are trying to create an issue by spreading misinformation. The fact is that when we met at a programme for Teachers’ Day on September 5, (school education minister) Kesarkar pointed out the issue of lack of infrastructure in village schools run by Zilla Parishad… At some of these schools, infrastructure has been improved with the help of private donors. So considering this situation, we gave a go-ahead for the ‘adoption programme’, which is aimed at using private funds for the improvement of school infrastructure,” said Pawar adding that the government has no plans to privatise public schools.