“Its no more a one man rule at the centre…” Sharad Pawar aims for Maharastra Assembly Polls, urges people power to ‘humble’ BJP down further

NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday took a subtle jibe at the Narendra Modi government at the Centre reminding BJP of a coalition government and not Modi government with majority on its own in power. He called it an “end of one person rule’ and advent of a government in place to run the nation. Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) that ran the election campaign on “Modi ki Guarantee” slogan, won 240 seats and fell short of 32 to claim majority. BJP led NDA now comprises of Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U).

“This is the power of the votes of people. Modi’s guarantee is over and there is a coalition government in place at the Centre. It isn’t one-person-rule anymore. Last 10 years, the government was one person, but now it has been freed from that”, Sharad Pawar said while speaking during a meeting in Pune's Purandar tehsil, a part of Baramati Lok Sabha constituency.

In Maharashtra, the Mahayuti alliance - comprising BJP, Shiv Sena (led by Eknath Shinde) and NCP (led by Ajit Pawar) got 17 Lok Sabha seats while the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) comprising Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) secured 30 seats of the total 48 seats. Pawar’s NCP contested in just 10 seats and won 8 out of them, making it the best strike rate of any political party in the country.

The veteran politician is now aiming for a bigger mandate owing to the impending Maharastra assembly elections slated for later this year. He is hopeful, like the Lok Sabha results, similar outcome would happen in the assembly elections. "After the Lok Sabha poll results are replicated in the state assembly polls, I will give the reins of the state in your hands. The power in the state will come in the hands of our people and this power will be used to address critical issues and for that I need your cooperation," Pawar added.

Maharastra politics has witnessed major turning points in little over 20 months since 2022 after Uddhav Thackeray had lost the chair of Chief Minister of Maharastra and had subsequently also lost the party name, only to be rechristened as Shiv Sena (UBT). Similarly, Ajit Pawar left Sharad Pawar, joined BJP and the senior Pawar had to settle with a new party name NCP (SB). The opposition has accused BJP of forcibly toppling the election government of Uddhav Thackeray in coalition with the congress and Sharad Pawar.

The NCP (SP) supremo, after the election victory, called BJP’s defeat a check on the “arrogance of one one rule” by the democracy where people have upheld the democratic principles.