By IANS
Aurangabad : Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar Sunday expressed a desire to forge an all-India alliance with the Congress party during the next parliamentary general elections, whenever they are held.
Addressing mediapersons in Aurangabad, Pawar said that the alliance at the national level would work on the lines of its partnership with the Congress in Maharashtra.
The Congress-NCP is into its second power-sharing term under the banner of the Democratic Front in Pawar’s home state.
“The NCP is ready to work with any Congress chief minister in Maharashtra,” he declared, indicating a similar approach at the centre.
Pawar’s statement is expected to bring cheer to the Congress, especially in the state where it has shared a blowing-hot-blowing-cold relationship with NCP.
A prominent Congress leader, requesting anonymity, told IANS that this hints at a softening of Pawar’s stance vis-à-vis Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
To a query, Pawar however, ruled out the possibility of mid-term parliamentary election.
Pawar also demanded prosecution of all those whose role and involvement in the Gujarat 2002 communal violence were allegedly revealed in a sting operation by the Tehelka newsmagazine last week. “All this was known to the political parties, but the Tehelka expose has brought it to the knowledge of the common masses,” he observed.
The NCP leader was on a day’s visit to Aurangabad where he felicitated women’s groups engaged in providing micro-finance to different projects by the poor people.