After Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar eyes Delhi polls; wants national party tag for NCP

New Delhi, Nov 28 (PTI) After tasting success in the Maharashtra elections, NCP chief Ajit Pawar on Thursday declared his party will contest the Delhi assembly elections in its bid to regain the national party status.

Addressing a felicitation ceremony at the NCP's office in the national capital, he also dismissed the opposition allegations of misuse of EVMs in the Maharashtra elections and asserted that the MahaYuti alliance was united and will form government soon.

Pawar said the leaders of the Mahayuti alliance were meeting for the first time on Thursday evening after the election results were announced.

"We are united... There are no differences," he said.

Pawar also said the opposition MVA coalition were blaming the EVMS as they did not get the desired results in the assembly elections.

"There is no truth to their allegations. They are blaming EVMs because they did not get a favourable result in the assembly elections," Pawar told reporters here.

The Congress and NCP-SP have raised doubts over the use of EVMs in the conduct of assembly elections and demanded a return to the practice of using ballot paper for polling.

Pawar pointed out that the opposition parties have won elections in Punjab, Delhi, Karnataka, Telangana, West Bengal and Kerala using EVMS.

"In the parliament elections also, EVMs were fine because the result was in their (Maha Vikas Aghadi) favour. In assembly elections, the result is different and they are now finding fault with the EVMs." Asked about his plans for the future of the NCP, Pawar said his party enjoyed the status of a national party and would work to regain that tag.

"We need to work more now, we will fight and we will achieve success," Pawar said. The NCP lost the national party tag in April last year.

"Our next target is the Delhi assembly elections. We will soon hold the national convention of the NCP in the national capital," he said.

Pawar said he was in the national capital to discuss power sharing arrangement in Maharashtra after the ruling MahaYuti alliance won a thumping mandate in the recently held assembly elections.

On the next chief minister of Maharashtra, Pawar said the decision in this regard will be taken at a meeting he, BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis and outgoing Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will have with central leaders of the BJP.

Pawar said the ruling alliance had consciously decided against putting up a chief ministerial face for the assembly elections.

"If such a decision had been made prematurely, things could have gone wrong. Some parties might feel they are being sidelined, leading to confusion about where they should focus their efforts. In the past, such situations have occurred. Initially, our target was to secure as many seats as possible for our alliance, and we received support accordingly, which was visible to everyone," Pawar said.

"Our first target was to bring Mahayuti back to power in the state. We have created history. No party or coalition had won such a huge victory. Our alliance won 235 seats, which is better than the 222 seats won by the Congress in the 1972 elections," he said.

The Mahayuti alliance won 235 seats in the assembly elections with BJP bagging 132 seats, Shiv Sena 57 and NCP 41. Smaller parties in the alliance won five seats. PTI