Ajit Pawar’s ‘pink’ refuses to blend with ‘saffron’. BJP’s new ally has been making a serious effort to retain its own colour as a secular party that plans to field a significant number of Muslim candidates in the forthcoming Assembly elections. Information says that the Muslim nominees’ number could be 10 per cent of Ajit Pawar NCP’s total contestants. Pawar is assured of getting four seats in Mumbai for which he has Muslim candidates ready, barring just one. The deputy chief minister in the BJP-Sena-NCP government has tried to reestablish his pro-Muslim credentials by severely criticising the state NDA leaders for their anti-Muslim rant. Last week, he shared a public platform with CM Eknath Shinde and Dy CM Devendra Fadnavis to air his strong views about the ‘verbose’, who, according to him, were creating a difficult situation for the CM and Mahayuti constituents. Pawar’s expression also came at a time when Shinde Sena’s MLA and BJP’s Rajya Sabha member had courted controversy over their remarks about Rahul Gandhi.

NCP’s minister Dhanajay Munde later confirmed that Pawar had expressed his strong concern to BJP’s top brass, including Amit Shah. In response, the generator of objectionable remarks stated that Pawar could complain wherever he wanted to. He also questioned the NCP chief’s silence over the act of stone pelting at the Ganesh visarjan processions. Dy CM Fadnavis feigned ignorance about Pawar’s complaint to the BJP’s top leadership, but said that the MLA was a Hindutva leader and his statements were misconstrued sometimes. He added that he and the MLA’s MP father had discussed the issue with the youth leader.