BJP engineered NCP split, no question of post-poll tie-up: Supriya Sule

PUNE: Ideological differences don't come in the way of Baramati MP Supriya Sule being friends with politicians across party lines, but the NCP (SCP) president is clear when she says she does not trust the BJP's senior leadership, both at the Centre and in the state.

In an exclusive interview with TOI on Friday, Supriya ruled out any alliance with the BJP, saying that the party's leadership has attacked NCP's reputation and engineered its split.

Speaking about a faction of NCP MLAs who, with her cousin deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, joined the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in the state, Supriya said that some party members switched sides because they feared action from Income Tax, CBI, and Enforcement Directorate. "After seeing how matters unfolded, my admiration for Anil Deshmukh (NCP SCP leader) and Sanjay Raut (Sena UBT leader) increased manifold. Despite being jailed, they stood their ground and did not give in to pressure," Supriya added. Recalling her meeting with some NCP 'rebels' at Devgiri bungalow, Ajit Pawar's official residence in Mumbai, just before her cousin and the others, took their oaths on July 2, 2023, Supriya said that six current ministers of Ajit Pawar's party had denied they were joining Mahayuti when they spoke to her.

"I spoke to at least 20 people. I kept asking them, but nobody was honest with me. They kept denying that they were joining Mahayuti. There were six senior MLAs among these 20 who later took their oaths," she said.

This is the first assembly election for Supriya as her party's working president after the NCP split. With only ten days of campaigning, she spent Friday visiting seven constituencies, participating in rallies, marches and meetings to campaign for MVA candidates in Pune.

She said, "I have travelled to various districts, and the response to MVA is quite good. People are suffering from inflation, unemployment, rising crime, and the agrarian crisis. But this govt is busy with vendetta politics which people rejected in the Lok Sabha poll, and will do so in the assembly election too." On the possibility of an alliance with the BJP, Supriya said those who left the party were pushing party chief Sharad Pawar to join it, but he chose not to go with them.

She said, "Before switching sides, those members were pursuing Pawar Saheb to join hands with the BJP. However, he was clear right from the beginning that he would not join them and told them to make their own decisions. We also have differences with them on some serious policy issues."

The NCP (SCP) working president said, "Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and Devendra Fadnavis have let the country and state down. They levelled serious allegations against us, calling the NCP Naturally Corrupt Party. They attempted to tarnish our reputation, and then they took half our party with them. Now, they will have to make up their minds on which NCP they have aligned with - the Nationalist Congress Party or the Naturally Corrupt Party."

The MP also claimed that the BJP did not spare her family members. "My cousins Vijaya Patil, Neeta Patil, and Rajani Indulkar's residences were raided by central agencies. They have no connection to politics, but this is how the invisible power, which uses agencies to create fear in the minds of people, works."

She said her father is a fighter. "When he was threatened with an ED notice, he got up and said, "I will come to you instead of you coming to my house.' Everybody deals with issues in different ways. There is a lot to say, but it is not necessary to bring everything out in public," she said.

On her possibility of becoming the chief minister, a post her father held four times, Supriya said, "Our politics is very different. If I and Ajit Pawar have to compare ourselves with him (Pawar), we will have to cry into our pillows. Ajit Pawar at least has publicly accepted that he aspires to be the CM. As for me, besides a Lok Sabha ticket, I have not asked for anything."