Sharad Pawar: Now the days of one-person rule at centre are gone

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Sharad Pawar, the chief of the NCP (SP), on Wednesday said that the days of one-person rule are gone, citing the BJP's inability to form the new government at the center without the support of other parties.

The Modi guarantee is no longer in effect, he said. Pawar continued, the formation of the coalition government at the Center was only possible beacause of the power of the voters, according to reports from PTI.

Pawar was speaking during a meeting in Pune's Purandar tehsil, a part of Baramati Lok Sabha constituency. He had come there to review the water scarcity situation.

"Elections are over and a government has been formed (at the Centre). Last 10 years, the government was one person, but now it has been freed from it (that system). This time, the government has been formed with the help of others," he said.

"The situation was such that the government would not have been formed without the help of the chief ministers of Bihar (Nitish Kumar) and Andhra Pradesh (N Chandrababu Naidu). The government has been formed with their help, which means gone are the days of one person running the government. It also means that Modi's guarantee, about which we used to hear, is over and power to end it (this guarantee) lies with you," the former Union minister said.

As per reports from PTI, Pawar claimed that the Lok Sabha election outcome showed that a similar result will be seen in the state assembly polls.

"After the Lok Sabha poll results are replicated in the state assembly polls, I will give the reins of the state in your hands. The power in the state will come in the hands of our people and this power will be used to address critical issues and for that I need your cooperation," Pawar told the gathering.

In the recently-held Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 240 seats, falling short of the 272 majority mark. BJP had to take support from the allies in the party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for government formation at center. A far cry from the 303 and 282 seats it had won in 2019 and 2014, respectively, to have a majority on its own.

The NDA passed the halfway point with the help of Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which secured 16 and 12 seats in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, respectively, as well as other alliance members.

However, the opposition alliance, INDIA had won 233 seats, with the Congress claiming 99 of them.