Pawar sees miracle by Nath

Rehabilitating loser not Cong culture: NCP prez

Amid uncertainty over Madhya Pradesh government’s stability, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday expressed faith in MP Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s leadership stating that people believe he can bring about a miracle. “It will be known in the next one or two days whether it (miracle) will really happen,” he said.

Referring to Jyotiraditya Scindia’s defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, Mr Pawar said that there is no culture in the Congress to immediately rehabilitate a leader after defeat. The veteran Maratha politician said that if Rajasaheb (Mr Scindia) would have been contacted for a dialogue, the situation would not have arisen. After filing his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections, to be held on March 26, in the state Legislature, Mr Pawar spoke to reporters in the Pressroom.

The NCP chief, who is the chief architect of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra, denied that the development in MP will have any impact in his state. "With my little knowledge of Maharashtra's politics, these developments will not have any impact on the MVA government, which is working on the right path,” he said in response to a question about ‘Operation Lotus’ in Maharashtra by the BJP till Gudi Padwa (first-day first month of Hindu calendar) by the end of this month after MP and Karnataka.

Refuting claims that the Congress did not have a future, he said that the Congress had leadership, capability and a future.

When asked whether the Congress leadership went astray in the manner in which it treated Mr Scindia, who quit the grand old party Tuesday to join the BJP, Mr Pawar said that he would not comment on internal matters but he had been hearing two versions. The person, who had lost the election, was expecting to be immediately given another position. It wasn’t that easy, he said.

On the question of Yes

Bank, he said that the investigation would be carried out. “One thing is very clear that it does not happen overnight,” he said. Therefore, the department of banking, finance ministry, Government of India, will have to answer for it.

On the question of imprisonment of the Jammu and Kashmir leaders, he said that he, along with former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, Sitaram Yechuri, Yashwant Sinha and Mamata Banerjee had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking immediate release of former J&K chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti as J&K was a sensitive state.