Pawar again predicts mid-term polls in Maharashtra

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar on Wednesday again predicted possible mid-term assembly elections in Maharashtra.

He said in Karad town here that he foresaw the possibility after the scheduled elections to the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation due by February 2017.

The corporation is now controlled by the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party combine.

"After the BMC elections, if the assembly elections are held, I shall not be surprised if there is a change of government," Pawar said.

BJP leader and Forests Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar dismissed Pawar's views, and said that "whatever Pawar says, the opposite will happen.

"Our alliance government is stable and strong, and will continue for its full five-year term," Mungantiwar asserted.

Soon after the Bihar election results emerged, Pawar had made a similar prediction, claiming if fresh polls were held in Maharashtra now, a similar situation could arise.

Later, the Maratha strongman had said that if the Maharashtra government collapsed due to internal contradictions, the NCP would not prop it up.