Shourie meets Pawar amid talks of Opposition's grand alliance

Former Union minister Arun Shourie met NCP chief Sharad Pawar here on Wednesday and discussed the political situation in the country, the party said.

Shourie, a former minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee's NDA government and a bitter critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, met Pawar at the latter's residence in south Mumbai for over an hour, said Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson Nawab Malik.

"Shourie told Pawar to take the lead in uniting all the Opposition parties ahead of the general elections," a party source said.

"Pawar told Shourie that he was trying to unite all Opposition parties," the source added.

NCP MPs Supriya Sule and Majeed Memon and a former judge of the Bombay and Allahabad high courts, Abhay Thipsay, who joined the Congress in June, were present at the meeting.

Pawar recently suggested that the Opposition parties should not project anyone as the prime ministerial candidate before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He also claimed that Congress president Rahul Gandhi had echoed his suggestion.

While advocating a grand alliance of Opposition parties, Pawar had suggested that national parties should go with a strong party at the regional level.