Union minister Raosaheb Danve on Friday said NCP chief Sharad Pawar's statements about `bowling a googly' to his party in November 2019 were the result of disappointment.
He was referring to Pawar's statement in Pune a day before that "certain things were done" in the aftermath of the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections to expose the BJP's `greed for power', and he knew "how to bowl a googly."
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a program here, Danve said his party did politics without being in power for many years.
"I was myself an MP or MLA for 28 years but not in power," he said, adding that the BJP decided to form government with NCP leader Ajit Pawar in November 2019 not out of a greed for power, but because it wanted to teach a lesson to the ally Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena "which deceived us and went with the Congress and NCP."
"Pawar's statements came out of disappointment," he added.
The government which Devendra Fadnavis formed in November 2019 with Ajit Pawar lasted for only 80 days. Fadnavis had claimed two days ago that Sharad Pawar had agreed to back the BJP then, but backed off two days prior to Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar's early morning swearing-in.
The Nationalist Congress Party will have to decide whether the "villain" of the whole episode was Ajit Pawar, or whether Sharad Pawar was trying "to prove Ajit a villain," Danve further said.
On the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) of K Chandrashekar Rao trying to enter Maharashtra politics and the reports that it had offered to make BJP's Pankaja Munde its CM candidate, Danve said people of the state were intelligent and knew whom should they support.
"Therefore, the BJP does not have anything to fear. They will have to grow their party and they can give offers to anyone. They can even give me the offer of Chief Minister's post,” he said.
On the Uniform Civil Code issue, the Union Minister of State for Railways said it has already been implemented in Goa and the BJP government in Uttarakhand government is "making progress in this regard".
"This is the demand of the common Indian,” Danve said.
-With PTI input
