Politics

NCP Leaders Meet Amit Shah in Delhi, Party Denies Internal Rift

By Faisal Malik

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) denied any internal split after a group of senior leaders met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi on Sunday, a day after the party’s top leaders Sunetra Pawar and her son Parth Pawar were absent from the meeting. NCP national working president Praful Patel, Maharashtra unit chief Sunil Tatkare, senior ministers Chhagan Bhujbal and Hasan Mushrif, and senior leaders Dilip Walse Patil and Dhananjay Munde were among those who met Shah late on Sunday. Some unnamed party insiders said that a few leaders were unhappy with how the NCP was being run by Sunetra Pawar and Parth Pawar. The leaders who met Shah had previously supported Ajit Pawar when he split the NCP in 2023. After returning to Mumbai on Monday evening, they met again at Bhujbal’s official residence before proceeding to a core committee meeting at Devgiri, Sunetra Pawar’s official residence. Sunil Tatkare told reporters outside the Devgiri bungalow that no merger talks took place during the meeting at Sunetra Pawar’s residence. “We discussed the functioning of the party and how to remain united under the leadership of Sunetra Pawar,” he said. He added that the leaders discussed the party’s functioning, organization, appointments and challenges, and that there was no question of a merger. “We had already clarified our position after the last core committee meeting,” he insisted. NCP spokesperson Umesh Patil downplayed the rumours of a leadership crisis. He said Sunetra Pawar and Parth Pawar had met Shah earlier to discuss issues facing the party after the death of former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar in an air crash in January. During that meeting, Sunetra Pawar had informed the home minister that a delegation of senior party leaders would meet him and had requested time for the interaction. The leaders also raised constituency‑related issues, and the discussion included informal exchanges between Mahayuti alliance partners. Patil said the reports that Sunetra and Parth Pawar had been deliberately left out of the meeting were part of an attempt by unseen forces to create an artificial narrative of a leadership crisis. The clarification came amid speculation over the party’s cohesion following Ajit Pawar’s death. After Sunetra Pawar became NCP national president, she introduced organizational and constitutional changes, including removing Praful Patel as national working president and Sunil Tatkare as Maharashtra state president.