‘Sympathy wave’ for Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra: Chhagan Bhujbal

File: Chhagan Bhujbal

Maharashtra is seeing a “sympathy wave” for both Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, whose respective parties suffered split allegedly engineered by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to Maharashtra minister Chhagan Bhujbal.

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“I believe there is a sympathy wave…the way Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena split and a faction of the NCP switched sides. This is showing in their rallies,” he told NDTV in an interview.

The senior leader, however, stressed that people continue to have faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and want him to win the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, and form a “strong government” at the Centre for a third consecutive time.

Bhujbal is part of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) camp led by state deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar; NCP was co-founded in 1999 by Ajit’s uncle Sharad, whose faction is now called NCP (Sharad Chandra Pawar). Similarly, the Shiv Sena, founded by Uddhav Thackeray’s father Balasaheb Thackeray in 1966, now stands divided into Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), and the other group, which got the original party name, is led by Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde.

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The Election Commission recognises Shinde’s Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP group, as the “real” Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party. Together with the BJP, they govern Maharashtra as part of the “Mahayuti” (grand alliance). The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition, on the other hand, has the Congress, Sena (UBT), and NCP (SCP).

Bhujbal, meanwhile, also spoke about the contest in the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency, a Sharad Pawar bastion.  The latter’s daughter, Supriya Sule, is the incumbent Baramati MP, and is seeking her third straight term from the seat.

“Even for me, it is saddening that people who have lived together in the same house for so many years…What is happening today is something that many people are not liking. Whose fault it is, that is a different matter. But it would have been very good if this had not happened,” he said.

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Bhujbal was talking about the impending poll battle in Baramati, where Ajit Pawar has fielded his wife Sunetra against Sule, his cousin.

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