Pune: Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar has said Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted the BJP and his party to come together in Maharashtra to form government after 2019 Assembly elections.
The BJP dismissed the claim, saying Pawar is not known for always speaking the truth.
Pawar made the claim during an event organised by Marathi daily Loksatta in Pune on Wednesday.
The NCP leader said he had told the PM that coming together of both the parties was not possible.
Reacting to Pawar's comments, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, whose party shares power with the NCP and Congress in Maharashtra, said that after the 2019 Assembly polls, the BJP was desperate for power and ready to hold anyone's hand for it.
After the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections, the Shiv Sena parted ways with long-term ally BJP over the issue of sharing the chief ministerial post.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led party then forged an alliance with the NCP and Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in the state.
At the Loksatta event, Pawar said he and PM Modi had meetings.
"It was his wish that we (NCP and BJP) come together. However, I went to his (PM's) office and told him it was not possible. I told him that we do not want to keep him in the dark. Our stand is different," said Pawar. Asked about the PM's response, Pawar said Modi had asked him to "think over it".
Commenting on Pawar's claim that Modi wanted the BJP and NCP to come together to form government in the state in 2019, state BJP president Chandrakant Patil wondered what took Pawar so long to reveal this information.
"Modi and Pawar are very senior leaders, so for people like us it would be difficult to find out what conversation had taken place between them," Patil said.
"But if such an offer was ever made (by Modi), I do not think Pawar was so indecisive that he would have rejected it," Patil said.
"It is not as if Pawar has been known for always speaking the truth," he said.
"Pawar has narrated a partial and convenient part of the whole story. He is known for doing exactly the opposite of what he says or indicates," state BJP spokesperson Keshav Upadhye said.
NCP spokesperson and state Minority Affairs Minister Nawab Malik claimed the BJP wanted to have an alliance with the Pawar-led party to form government after 2019 Assembly elections.
"There was an offer from the BJP, but our party, after deliberations, rejected it. I was present then," Malik said.
