PUNE: Prior to flying off to Delhi from Pune on Wednesday, the face of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) President Sharad Pawar appeared gloomy. His body language indicated that all was not well between the NCP and Congress party.
According to a senior NCP leader who returned here yesterday, the Congress is humiliating Pawar, just as it had done with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.
“Both Pawar and the NCP are being sidelined and are on the waiting list for ministerial berth in the federal government,” the NCP leader told Arab News on condition of anonymity. However, the discussions on ministerial berth to the NCP have not yet been finalized, the leader added.
In the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Pawar had played a crucial role.
The picture now appears different as he is given less prominence and is being sidelined in comparison to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and K. Karunanidhi’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), in view of the thumping majority of the Congress in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
