Sunetra Pawar calls all NCP legislators after Shah meeting

Six senior leaders met the Union home minister in Delhi without her; the party denies any rift and says a merger with the Sharad Pawar faction is off the table

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief and Maharashtra deputy chief minister Sunetra Pawar on Tuesday called all of the party's members of the state legislative assembly and council to a meeting at her official residence, Devgiri, in Mumbai. Hindustan Times reported that the meeting was seen as an effort to project unity. The Free Press Journal said it was set for 7 pm.

The meeting comes a day after six senior NCP leaders met Union home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Monday: Praful Patel, Sunil Tatkare, Dilip Walse Patil, Hasan Mushrif, Chhagan Bhujbal and Dhananjay Munde, according to The Free Press Journal. Neither Sunetra Pawar nor her son, Rajya Sabha MP Parth Pawar, attended.

What the party says

NCP spokesperson Umesh Patil on Monday dismissed talk of a rift, Hindustan Times reported. He said the two had not attended because they had recently met Mr Shah themselves and had asked him to meet the other leaders as well.

State president Sunil Tatkare also denied any discontent. "There is no discontent within the party... The Delhi meeting was pre-planned; all our leaders are united," he said, as quoted by The Free Press Journal. He said discussion of a merger with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP had already ended, and that meetings with MLAs were routine.

MLA Manikrao Kokate, a former minister seen as a Pawar family loyalist, said on Tuesday that the family of the late Ajit Pawar would have the final say in running the party, and that those who disagreed should leave, Hindustan Times reported. He said there would be no split and did not name anyone.

What is unconfirmed

The Free Press Journal reported, without naming its sources, that the Delhi delegation discussed the party's functioning and a possible merger, and asked for the state finance portfolio to be returned to the NCP. None of this has been confirmed on the record by the NCP or the BJP.

Background

Ajit Pawar died in a plane crash in January, and Sunetra Pawar took charge of the party in February, Hindustan Times reported. She then made organisational changes, including dropping Praful Patel as national working president and Sunil Tatkare as state president. She later said the omissions were inadvertent, but they were not reversed. At Monday's core committee meeting, some senior leaders objected to key appointments being made without consulting them, the paper said.