Terming it a strategic move to expose the Bharatiya Janata Party’s lust for power, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday admitted that his party held talks with the saffron party after the Assembly elections in Maharashtra in 2019.

Pawar claimed that the talks for government formation before his nephew Ajit Pawar allied with the BJP, were part of a calculated strategy to demonstrate how far the BJP could go to hold on to power.

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“BJP leaders claimed that I changed my mind just days before the swearing-in ceremony of Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, the government did not last long. It was a calculated move by me to demonstrate that the BJP would go to any lengths to hold onto power, while the NCP does not chase power,” Pawar said, referring to the time when Ajit Pawar was sworn in as the Deputy CM while Devendra Fadnavis took oath as CM.

Pawar further said that the NCP had offered outside support to the BJP to form a government in 2014 in order to “create a rift” within the NDA partners in the state. “In 2014, the NCP had openly offered external support to the BJP to form the government, which was aimed at creating a rift among the alliance partners of the NDA in the state,” he said.

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The alliance between Shiv Sena (undivided) and the BJP in Maharashtra almost fell out on the claim for chief ministership in 2014. The NCP had offered to support the BJP from outside hoping to create a rift between the Shiv Sena and the BJP as the latter had won more seats in the elections.

The alliance finally broke when a similar situation arose in 2019 and the Shiv Sena refused to accept the BJP’s demand for a full five-year term for the CM. The Shiv Sena walked out and eventually joined hands with the NCP and Congress to form a government with Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister.

The BJP did manage to get hold of Ajit Pawar to briefly form a government, the alliance did not last long. Last year, the BJP managed to engineer defections in the Sena camp and returned to power with Eknath Shinde as CM and Fadnavis as his deputy.