Amid the growing rift between the ruling saffron alliance partners in Maharashtra, NCP president Sharad Pawar on Wednesday ruled out the possibility of his party extending its support to the BJP in the event of the Shiv Sena withdrawing its support to the Devendra Fadnavis Government.
Addressing a news conference at the state BJP headquarters here, Pawar said: "Given that it is glued to power inextricably, I doubt that the Shiv Sena will ever walk out of the Devendra Fadnavis government in the state. Both the parties (BJP and Sena) will keep abusing each other and calling each other names but none of them will opt out of power. However, in the event of the Sena walking out of the BJP-led government, the NCP will not extend its support to the Fadnavis government".
Alluding to the support extended by his party ahead of the NCP joining the Fadnavis government in November last year, Pawar said: "When we offered support to the BJP then, we did so only to ensure that there is a stable government in the state. However, after seeing the pathetic performance of the Fadnavis government during the past one year, we would not like to extend our support to the BJP in the event of the Sena withdrawing its support to the state government".
Taking a dig at the Narendra Modi government at the Centre for its failure to fulfil its promises made to the people in the run-up to the 2014 elections, Pawar said: "During the election campaign, Modi's campaign was 'acche din aane wale hai' (good days are coming) but recently I received an SMS, which said 'hamae bure din hame lauta dijeye' (return our bad days)".
Expressing serious concern over the manner in which writers across the country were returning their awards in protest against the killing of a man over storing and eating of beef and the murder of rationalist MM Kalburgi, said: "Whatever we are witnessing is extremely seriously. The law and order may be a state subject, the Centre has to take cognizance and initiate remedial measures.... .the Prime Minister called me in New Delhi around 10 days ago, he spoke to me, but he has responded only today".