Mumbai: The NCP merger question has moved from cabinet corridors to open argument. Rohit Pawar, the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) MLA, accused Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday of "arrogance" born of power and of practising "blackmail" in politics.
"Who was blackmailing Ajitdada, and who gave orders to blackmail him?" he asked, pointing to the Mundhwa land case in Pune district and the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation elections. The BJP's politics itself rests on blackmail, he said, and its leaders should stay out of the reunion question.
Fadnavis has kept his position unchanged. "If they decide on a merger, they will come and tell us because it cannot happen without us. So far neither of them has told us anything," he said.
The formula doing the rounds inside the party is precise. If the factions merge, the national president's post goes to Sharad Pawar and the national working president's post to Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar. A second track, still being worked, would give Baramati MP Supriya Sule a berth in the Union council of ministers as part of the same settlement.
The finance portfolio sits alongside it. Ajit Pawar held it until he died in the aircraft crash at Baramati on January 28. Fadnavis holds it now, and the ruling NCP is reported to be asking for it.
State NCP president Sunil Tatkare said last week that talks on reuniting the two factions had taken place. "Had he been alive, the merger of the two factions would have been completed on February 12," he said.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut has claimed that 20 to 22 MLAs of Sunetra Pawar's party could walk out at any time. Sunetra Pawar's own answer, twice now, has been that things will be known when the time comes. On Wednesday, Tatkare met Fadnavis at Varsha for about 90 minutes.
Next: whether an announcement arrives before the winter session, and whether Raut's count of 22 holds.