Will continue: Sharad Pawar asks NCP rebels not to raise issue of his age

NCP president Sharad Pawar on Saturday said the Bharatiya Janata Party appears to have plans to "destroy" state-level parties and weaken the Opposition.

Days after his nephew Ajit Pawar and several other MLAs of the Nationalist Congress Party rebelled against him and joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra, Pawar senior hit the road in an attempt to rally party workers behind him. Speaking to reporters in Nashik city, he said he has seen politics of former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and P V Narasimha Rao, all of whom spoke (critically) about opposition parties but never sought to silence the Opposition.

"It appears that the BJP has plans to destroy state-level parties. They have done this in different places. In electoral democracy, the opposition party is as important as the ruling party. But the BJP's policy is to weaken the Opposition, he said.

The BJP knows what is in store for it and hence it is splitting up other parties to ensure majority in the Lok Sabha in 2024, Pawar said.

This is very detrimental to electoral democracy, he added. The NCP chief also said he does not consider those with whom he has differences of opinion his enemies. Difference of opinion does not mean enmity, he said.