Post-LS polls, decentralisation of power started in India: Sharad Pawar

Pune (Maharashtra), June 10 (IANS) The process of ‘decentralisation’ of power has been initiated in India after the just-concluded Lok Sabha 2024 General Elections, as the people have voted wisely, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) President, Sharad Pawar, said here on Monday.  

Addressing the Silver Jubilee of the party he founded on June 10, 1999, Pawar, 83, said that in the last five years, the country witnessed a government that was run on whims of some persons without giving any thought for the nation.

“There was an attempt to centralise power, whatever they felt was the right policy, or the laws as they deemed fit… Fortunately, due to the peoples’ verdict, such a situation will not recur in the country.

“The masses have taken note of it and the manner in which they voted, the power that was concentrated in the hands of just one or two individuals has become limited now,” said Sharad Pawar.

In what is viewed as a veiled attack on NDA 3.0 which took office on Sunday, without taking names, senior Pawar said the country is seeing a much changed scenario now, though the government is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Overall, there is a huge difference between the voting patterns in 2019 and then in 2024, as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s winning figure and parliamentary majority have been slashed, he pointed out.

“If they (BJP) had not secured the support of the Telugu Desam Party and Janata Dal (U), then they lacked the capacity to complete their majority independently in Parliament,” Pawar declared.

He was flanked by National Working Presidents Supriya Sule and PC Chacko, state President Jayant Patil, General Secretary Dr. Jitendra Awhad and other senior leaders.

Supriya Sule said that it was perhaps for the first time in the country’s history that the PM was taking his oath in Delhi and a terror attack was being carried out in Jammu & Kashmir at that time.

PC Chacko noted that in 2019, the (undivided) NCP had only four MPs, but its performance doubled in 2024 with the NCP(SP) getting 8 MPs elected, despite the machinations of certain persons who broke the party (July 2023).

“In Baramati, they concentrated their full energy to defeat Supriya Sule, but the people there decided which is ‘the real NCP’. We are now going to revamp the party systematically all over India and fill up vacancies,” said Chacko.

The trio of Pawar-Sule-Chacko said that despite certain events last year, the party notched an impressive growth, progress and was in power for 18 years in its 25-years’ existence.

The event was attended by top leaders, elected representatives and a large number of workers.

--IANS

qn/rad