Mumbai: Sharad Pawar on Tuesday announced that he had decided to step down as president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and will not be contesting elections in the future.
“I have three years tenure remaining in Rajya Sabha. I will not contest elections henceforth,” the NCP chief, who founded the party in 1999, said at the launch of the second edition of his autobiography, ‘Lok Maze Sangati’. “I started my political career on May 1, 1960. Yesterday we celebrated May day. After this prolonged political career, one must think about stopping somewhere. One must not be greedy.”
Pawar recommended that a committee be formed, comprising senior NCP leaders, to decide the future course of action. “The committee will include, Praful Patel, Sunil Tatkare, P C Chacko, Narhari Zirwal, Ajit Pawar, Supriya Sule, Jayant Patil, Chhagan Bhujabl, Dilip walse-Patil, Anil Deshmukh, Rajesh Tope, Jitendra Awhad, Hasan Mushrif, Dhananjay Munde, Jaydev Gaikwad and chiefs of party frontal cells,” Pawar said.
There has been no announcement yet on who will succeed him as party boss.
