Pune: NCP supremo Sharad Pawar has now openly come out to stake a Maharashtrian's claim to Prime Ministership, saying "anything can happen if UPA or NDA do not get the magic figure" in the coming Lok Sabha polls.
On a campaign in Western Maharashtra, he said there was a "general feeling in the state" that Maharashtra should get the opportunity for the country's top job after leaders from Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka got the opportunity.
The Union Minister said the Congress, which leads the UPA, had rejected the NCP proposal for a pre-poll alliance under one agenda and one leader and decided to have state-level tie-ups. This, said Pawar, had given a say to other UPA constituents in deciding the Prime Ministerial candidate after the Lok Sabha polls.
Even as he admitted that his party would not have the numerical strength to make a bid for prime ministership, Pawar said in the possibility of a fractured mandate, the newly formed Third Front could play an important after the elections. Pawar, whose constituency is spread across two districts of Solapur and Satara, launched his campaign from his ancestral village Nandval yesterday, addressing a series of rallies in the NCP bastion.
Shiv Sena's support to Pawar to better his Prime Ministerial prospects as "Marathi Manoos" has been a contentious issue in the saffron alliance with BJP maintaining that as a constituent of NDA, the Bal Thackeray-led party was bound to back L K Advani. On his part, the NCP chief has said that supporting a Marathi is the Sena policy as was evident in the last Presidential election won by Pratibha Patil.
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