New Delhi: The Nationalist Congress Party, which was being seen as a key component of any probable anti-BJP alliance, on Friday plunged into a crisis of sorts when its senior MP and one of the founder members Tariq Anwar resigned from the party as well as his Lok Sabha seat over NCP chief Sharad Pawar's supposed clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Rafale deal. Mr Anwar's future political course was unclear. However, speculation was rife that he might either join the Congress or the RJD. In both scenarios he would lend weight to the anti-BJP Mahagathbandhan in his home state Bihar.
The MP from Katihar in Bihar, had left the Congress in 1999 along with Sharad Pawar and P A Sangma protesting over Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins. “Our (NCP) national president Sharad Pawar indirectly gave a clean chit to PM, in a statement on Rafale deal. PM is completely involved in the deal. Opposition is demanding constitution of JPC for probe in it. I'm upset with his statement," Mr Anwar said in Katihar. In an interview to a Marathi channel, Mr Pawar said he didn't think that people have doubts about PM Modi's intentions in the Rafale deal.
Mr Pawar's daughter and Baramati MP Supriya Sule, in a series of tweets failed to address the primary question of whether the NCP supremo had backed the PM on Rafale or not. On Thursday, BJP Chief Amit Shah ruffled feathers when he asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi to believe his own ally who put "national interests above party politics".
