Pawar dangles 10% Muslim seat carrot

Even as the BJP has made it clear that it will continue its Hindutva agenda and make it one of the biggest issues in the upcoming assembly poll campaign, its alliance partner, NCP chief and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar surprised many on Thursday by announcing that his party wanted to give 10 per cent of tickets in the assembly polls to candidates from the Muslim community.

This is widely seen as the ruling Mahayuti attempt to counter the trend of Muslims voting for the Congress and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena observed in the recent Lok Sabha polls.

Speaking to the media in his hometown Baramati in Pune district, Ajit Pawar said, "I am very clear that we want 10 per cent of our candidates to be Muslims. If I get 50 seats to contest, I will field five Muslim candidates; if I get 100 seats, I will field 10 candidates from the Muslim community."