NCP (SP) head Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was not part of merger discussions between the two Nationalist Congress Party factions and therefore had no right to comment on them. Speaking to reporters in Baramati, the former Union Minister claimed that NCP (SP) leader Jayant Patil and his nephew and NCP chief Ajit Pawar had been leading the merger talks. Deputy CM Ajit Pawar died in a plane crash on January 28. After his death, Sharad Pawar and other leaders of his party claimed that merger talks were in advanced stages and Ajit Pawar had finalised February 12 as the date to announce reunification between the rival factions. CM Fadnavis, however, said if the merger talks were really in progress, then Ajit Pawar would have shared details with him.

 

Asked about Fadnavis’s remarks, Sharad Pawar said, “I do not understand, what right he has to mention my name? As he was nowhere in the merger talks, he has no right to comment on it.” on India-US trade deal Sharad Pawar on said the new US tariff policy has provisions allowing agricultural exports to India, which is a cause for concern for Indian farmers. A clear picture of the recent India-US trade deal would emerge in the next two days, Pawar told reporters in Baramati. “We can comment only after the picture becomes clear. However, a provision in the Indo-US tariff deal announced by the United States allows agricultural exports to India, which is a matter of concern for Indian farmers and the domestic agriculture sector,” he said. “The US is a powerful economy, and large-scale agricultural exports by such a country can adversely impact local producers in other nations.

 

I expect that the Indian agriculture sector will be safeguarded and not exposed to such a situation,” the Rajya Sabha member said. Speaking about row over Army chief MM Naravane’s ‘memoir’ in Lok Pawar said that Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi should have been allowed in the Lok Sabha to quote from an unpublished “memoir” of former Army chief MM Naravane. “If the former Army chief has written something and if the Leader of the Opposition is saying something, then it is his (Gandhi’s) right and he should have been given that opportunity,” the Rajya Sabha member said at a press conference in Baramati. He said that an atmosphere of suspicion should not prevail unnecessarily in the country.