Pawar Declines Support for NDA VP Candidate, Slams Radhakrishnan over Soren Arrest
Mr. Fadnavis had contacted Mr. Pawar and Mr. Thackeray on Thursday night, urging them to back Mr. Radhakrishnan, who is a voter from Mumbai and currently serves as the Governor of Maharashtra.
Mumbai: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder Sharad Pawar on Friday said his party will not support the NDA’s Vice Presidential candidate, C.P. Radhakrishnan, citing ideological differences and allegations of misuse of power during Mr. Radhakrishnan’s tenure as Governor of Jharkhand.
Mr. Pawar’s statement came two days after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis reached out to both him and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, seeking support for the NDA candidate in the upcoming Vice Presidential election.
The Vice President’s post fell vacant following the sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar on July 21. The election is scheduled for September 9. The Congress-led INDIA bloc has already announced former Supreme Court judge Sudershan Reddy as its candidate.
Mr. Fadnavis had contacted Mr. Pawar and Mr. Thackeray on Thursday night, urging them to back Mr. Radhakrishnan, who is a voter from Mumbai and currently serves as the Governor of Maharashtra.
However, Mr. Pawar declined, pointing to Mr. Radhakrishnan’s controversial role in the arrest of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren earlier this year. He said, “Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis called me requesting our party’s support for C. P. Radhakrishnan. I told him it was not possible. When he was Governor of Jharkhand, a tribal-dominated state, CM Hemant Soren went to meet him at Raj Bhavan. Mr. Soren was arrested by central agencies — CBI and ED — right in the Governor’s presence. He had pleaded not to be arrested there and offered to cooperate outside Raj Bhavan, but his request was denied. That’s a clear misuse of power. Such a person cannot be supported.”
The former Union minister also acknowledged that the opposition does not have the numbers to win the election but maintained that principles matter more than arithmetic. “We know we don’t have the numbers in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha. But we’re not worried about the result,” he said.
The NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) and Shiv Sena (UBT) are part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra, along with the Congress. All three are members of the opposition INDIA bloc at the national level.
Mr. Fadnavis confirmed that he had reached out to both Mr. Pawar and Mr. Thackeray. While Mr. Thackeray said he would consult his allies before taking a decision, the NCP founder had clearly conveyed that his party would support the opposition’s candidate.