Amit Shah to unveil Ajit Pawar statue in Pune as NCP merger talk builds

Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah is due in Pune on Sunday, November 15, for a two-day visit that starts with a cooperative-sector foundation stone and ends with the unveiling of a statue of the late Ajit Pawar. It comes while Maharashtra is asking whether the two Nationalist Congress Party factions will reunite.

According to reports, the Maharashtra government’s publicity department has confirmed the two-day programme. Shah is also expected to meet senior leaders and office-bearers of the BJP, the NCP and the Shiv Sena in Pune, the three parties that make up the Mahayuti government. A Mumbai leg has also been mentioned, but no programme for it has been released.

What is on the schedule

On Sunday at about 2 pm, Shah is to lay the foundation stone of a cooperative-basis industrial unit at Talegaon Dabhade, in Maval taluka. The project is the redevelopment of the site of National Heavy Engineering Cooperative Ltd. Union Minister of State Murlidhar Mohol and former Minister of State Bala Bhegade announced it at a press conference on Wednesday, November 11. Mohol said the central and state governments had consistently worked to strengthen the cooperative sector. Neither the cost nor the number of jobs has been given.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar, and BJP state president Ravindra Chavan are expected to attend. Shah will also visit the Bharat Forge facility at Mundhwa, stay overnight in Pune and is likely to flag off the Pune Marathon.

On Monday, November 16, he is to unveil a statue of Ajit Pawar on the premises of the Pune Zilla Parishad. Ajit Pawar, the former Deputy Chief Minister and NCP president, died in a plane crash at Baramati on January 28. NCP sources say Sunetra Pawar, his widow, who now heads the party and is Deputy Chief Minister, formally asked Shah to perform the unveiling. NCP legislators, ministers and MPs have reportedly been told by phone to attend.

The merger question

The visit follows a week of denials that few people have taken at face value. Sharad Pawar was admitted to Pune’s Ruby Hall Clinic on November 2 and later moved to Mumbai, and Praful Patel’s visit to him in hospital added to the speculation. Our earlier report on the split in the Pawar camp described the NCP (SP) legislators as divided four ways, though no leader has confirmed that on the record.

Supriya Sule, working president of the NCP (SP) and Baramati MP, said on Thursday, November 12, that no approach has been made. “No proposal regarding a merger has been received by us,” she said. “My brother is gone, and on that very day, the subject of the merger ended for me.”

Sunil Tatkare, the NCP’s Maharashtra president, gave a different account. He said talks were active while Ajit Pawar was alive and would have led to a merger by February had he not died.

Sunetra Pawar, asked in Pune on Wednesday, did not deny it. “As time comes, you will all come to know about everything,” she said.

Fadnavis set the BJP’s position. He said only Sharad Pawar and Sunetra Pawar could clarify whether the factions would unite, and that neither had told the BJP anything. “If they decide to merge, they will come and tell us, because the merger cannot happen without us,” he said.

How the Delhi meetings fit in

Reports say Sunetra Pawar and her son, MP Parth Pawar, met Shah in New Delhi in recent days. The NCP is said to have asked for the finance department to come back to it, and the two discussed bringing the factions together. A separate delegation of Praful Patel, Sunil Tatkare, Dilip Walse Patil, Chhagan Bhujbal, Hasan Mushrif and Dhananjay Munde has also met him, reportedly to raise party functioning and tension between veteran and younger leaders. None of these meetings has been confirmed by the leaders involved.

The finance portfolio has been a sore point since the Devgiri meeting of NCP leaders on November 3, where Chhagan Bhujbal urged the party to prepare for all 288 seats. We reported then that the BJP had asked Sunetra Pawar to meet Shah in Delhi if she wanted the department, which Fadnavis now holds.

During Sharad Pawar’s hospital stay, Prime Minister Narendra Modi phoned to ask after his health, and Parth Pawar visited Pawar’s Mumbai residence, Silver Oak, on two consecutive days. The reports say this prompted talk of backchannel contacts but that none of it confirms negotiations.

Why it matters

A merger would change the arithmetic of the Mahayuti government. The NCP’s weight in it, its claim to the finance department and the place of Sharad Pawar’s legislators would all be reopened, and the BJP has made clear it wants to be at the table. For Pune and Maval, the Talegaon project is a smaller story: a cooperative unit meant to revive the site of a defunct cooperative engineering firm, with fresh industrial activity and local jobs.

What happens next

Shah arrives on Sunday. The foundation stone at Talegaon Dabhade is expected at 2 pm, followed by the Bharat Forge visit and the evening meetings with the alliance leaders. The statue is to be unveiled on Monday at the Zilla Parishad. Whether Shah says anything about the NCP in public, or the meetings produce a statement from either Pawar camp, will be known only after those two days.