Oppn pact unlikely for LS polls: Pawar

Mumbai, October 23

NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Tuesday indicated that a national-level pre-poll opposition alliance for the 2019 General Election was unlikely, but said he was trying to bring the non-BJP parties together on a common platform in a bid to defeat NDA.

Pawar said any party in the Opposition getting the maximum seats after the Lok Sabha polls could claim prime ministership if the Modi government is unseated.

“I do not see the possibility of a uniform national alliance since political situation on the ground varies from state to state. I am talking to different parties to bring them on a common platform,” Pawar said at a media conclave. He said the current situation in the country was similar to the one in 2004.

“There will be change in government in Delhi and Maharashtra. No single party can provide an alternative. I do not think Narendra Modi will be PM after the Lok Sabha polls,” he said.

Nobody thought Manmohan Singh would become the PM, but he gave a stable government for 10 years, the NCP chief said. “(Ex-PM) Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s stature in the BJP and the country was much bigger than Modi. Still there was a change. There is never a vacuum in politics. There will be an alternative even now,” he observed.

Asked whether the NCP would support Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, who hails from Maharashtra, as Prime Minister if the BJP-led alliance retains power, Pawar said, “I would not support anybody from the BJP.” He said leaders like HD Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral became Prime Minister by “accident” and that he did not want to be part of “accidents”.

Asked about former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s comment that the Congress will not project party president Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate, Pawar said what Chidambaram said was the Congress’s approach. — PTI