NCP to support Fadnavis government for stability

Pawar claims only way to avoid fresh polls is to back BJP

Reiterating its unconditional outside support for the BJP-led minority government in the Maharashtra Assembly, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Monday said it wants stability in the state, not fresh elections.

NCP president Sharad Pawar said though his party, with 41 legislators, would strive to not destablise Devendra Fadnavis’s government, it would oppose any move it deemed to be wrong.

Pawar also took on Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray for calling him the pioneer of the term “saffron terrorism”. Thackeray, on Sunday, had declared that his party would sit in the Opposition rather than join the BJP government, if his former allies accepted the support of the NCP.

On Monday, the NCP chief said the legislators would take a call on whether to support or not, or to remain absent, or abstain during the vote of confidence motion to be moved by chief minister Fadnavis on Wednesday.

He also said the decision to support the government was “conscious and collective” and not a part of a “hidden deal” with the BJP. He added that the BJP was free to not accept his party’s support.

The former chief minister said since his party and its estranged ally, the Congress, were in no position to provide an alternative, the only way to prevent fresh polls was to support the BJP government.