NCP leaders meet Amit Shah without Sunetra Pawar and son Parth, party denies internal rift

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) denied any rift in the organisation on Monday, a day after a meeting of some of its senior leaders with Union home minister Amit Shah in Delhi in the absence of top party leaders Sunetra Pawar and Parth Pawar sparked a buzz.

The meeting between the NCP delegation and Amit Shah comes more than a week after Sunetra and Parth met the union home minister in Delhi. (HT_PRINT/File)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, among others, met Shah late on Sunday.

According to a section of party insiders who did not want to be named, some leaders were not happy with the way the NCP was being managed by Maharashtra deputy chief minister Sunetra Pawar and her son, Rajya Sabha member Parth Pawar.

The leaders who met Shah had rallied behind Ajit Pawar when he decided to split the NCP in 2023. Party insiders said that the leaders again had a meeting at Bhujbal’s official residence after returning to Mumbai on Monday evening, before proceeding for a core committee meeting that was scheduled at Devgiri, the official residence of Sunetra Pawar.

Briefing the media later, Sunil Tatkare said that no merger talks took place during the meeting at Sunetra's Pawar's residence. “We discussed the functioning of the party and how to remain united under the leadership of Sunetra Vahini (Pawar),” Tatkare told reporters outside ‘Devgiri’ bungalow.

He said that party leaders discussed at length about the party’s functioning, the organization, appointments and challenges. “There was no question of a merger,” he said, adding that NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar had put an end to that possibility by taking a stand against it.

“We had already clarified our position after the last core committee meeting,” he insisted. He further said that they discussed organisational matters and collective leadership in a cordial atmosphere. NCP spokesperson Umesh Patil played down the buzz over differences in the party.

He said Sunetra Pawar and Parth Pawar had met Shah earlier to discuss issues confronting the party following former NCP chief Ajit Pawar’s death. During that meeting, Sunetra Pawar had personally informed the home minister that a delegation of senior party leaders would be meeting him and requested him to make time for the interaction, Patil said.

“The leaders also raised issues concerning their respective constituencies during the meeting. The interaction included informal discussions and an exchange of views between leaders of the Mahayuti alliance partners,” he said.

“The reports suggesting Sunetra and Parth Pawar had been deliberately kept out of the meeting were part of an attempt by unseen forces to create an artificial narrative of a leadership crisis,” it stated. “This is nothing but deliberate mischief,” the statement added without naming anyone.

The clarification came amid speculations over the party’s internal cohesion following the death of former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar in an air crash in January. After Sunetra Pawar took charge as the NCP national president, she introduced a series of organisational and constitutional changes, including the removal of leaders such as Praful Patel as the national working president and Sunil Tatkare as the Maharashtra state president.

Faisal Malik is a senior journalist with over two and a half decades of experience covering Maharashtra’s politics, governance and public policy with a deep understanding of the state’s political landscape. He is a Senior Assistant Editor at Hindustan Times and has been associated with its Mumbai edition for more than a decade.

Based in Mumbai, Faisal currently covers three major political parties in Maharashtra — Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and NCP (Sharad Pawar). Over the years, he has extensively reported on major political developments, combining investigative insights with in-depth field reporting.

His coverage has spanned a wide range of issues, from drought, farmer suicides, major development projects and grassroots challenges to major electoral battles, including three Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections — 2014, 2019 and 2024.

Before joining Hindustan Times, he worked with ‘The Asian Age’ and ‘Dainik Bhaskar’. An avid tea enthusiast, he enjoys reading history, Urdu literature and classical poetry. When away from the newsroom, he writes Urdu poetry inspired by human emotions, life's experiences, meaningful reflections and relationships.

An amateur photographer, Faisal is passionate about capturing moments that often go unnoticed by the naked eye.Read More