Sharad Pawar, Sapkal to not attend 'victory rally' of Uddhav-Raj

NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar will not take part in the event being organised by Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray in Worli on Saturday to mark ''victory'' in the Hindi ''imposition'' and three-language policy issues.

Speaking to PTI on Friday, NCP (SP) working president and Baramati MP Supriya Sule said Pawar will be in Pune on Saturday.

Sule said she and MLA Jitendra Awhad will take part.

The opposition stalwart had earlier told reporters he has events scheduled in Pune and would, therefore, not attend the Worli event.

''Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Bala Nandgaonkar called me and invited me to the rally,'' state NCP (SP) chief Jayant Patil told PTI.

Congress sources, meanwhile, said Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut had invited the party's state unit president Harshwardhan Sapkal for the event but the latter will not participate due to the ''inconsistent'' political stand of MNS chief Raj Thackeray.

Sakpal, however, had made it clear earlier that the Congress supports the opposition to Hindi as third language from Class I in Marathi and English medium schools in the state.

The Devendra Fadnavis government recently withdrew two GRs on Hindi and three-language policy amid strident protests by the opposition, especially Shiv Sena (UBT) and MNS.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi comprises the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and Nationalist Congress Party (SP).

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)