Prithviraj Chavan says Congress will lose some strength if both NCP parties join BJP

Talk has been going around for the past few days that the two Nationalist Congress parties could come together again. Different claims are being made about a merger. Amid this, senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan has made a statement on the merger and on Sharad Pawar.

The discussion began when NCP (Sharad Pawar group) president Sharad Pawar was admitted to hospital and NCP (Ajit Pawar group) leader Praful Patel met him. Talk of a merger of the two parties has been revived since then.

NCP (Ajit Pawar group) state president Sunil Tatkare then claimed that had Ajit Pawar been alive, the merger would have happened on 12 February itself. After Tatkare's claim, Shiv Sena (Thackeray group) leader and MP Sanjay Raut said that 20 to 22 NCP MLAs would break away. The NCP (Ajit Pawar group) rejected Raut's claim and also launched a sharp attack on him.

Amid these developments, Chavan said: "If Sharad Pawar goes with the BJP after 60 years, it will be his personal self-interest, but that will not happen. I do not think he will do so. After all, the party is his, and the decision will be his alone."

Chavan further said that if both parties merged and went over to the other side, Congress's strength would reduce somewhat. He also said that if this happened, only two ideologies would remain in the country.

Chavan also referred to Sonia Gandhi. According to him, Sonia Gandhi had abruptly resigned as president at that time, but withdrew the resignation at the request of the Working Committee. Chavan said that after the death of Rajiv Gandhi there was pressure on Sonia Gandhi to go back to Italy, but she adopted India as her motherland.