Tariq Anwar quits NCP, LS after Pawar backs BJP government on Rafale deal

Senior NCP leader Tariq Anwar has quit the party following differences with party president Sharad Pawar's stand on the Rafale issue, a senior party leader said on Friday, September 28.

The leader said Anwar had also resigned as the party’s Lok Sabha MP. Anwar was a Lok Sabha member from Katihar in Bihar. The Muslim leader was a prominent NCP face in Bihar.

In an interview to a Marathi television channel this week, Pawar said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intentions on the Rafale fighter jet aircraft deal were not wrong.

NCP Spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Majeed Memon and party leader Nawab Malik confirmed Anwar's resignation.

NCP later came out with a clarification, saying it did not amount to a clean chit to the prime minister.

Anwar, a former union minister, has been backing the Congress demand for a JPC probe into the deal and has also sought a white paper on the issue.

"No decision has been taken so far about my future political move. I will be deciding that after consulting my supporters," he said.

Reacting to the development, Congress MLC Prem Chand Mishra described Anwar as a "fine leader". "We shall be eagerly looking at his next political move," he said.

A former president of Congress' Bihar unit, Anwar formed the NCP in the 1990s along with Pawar and the late PA Sangma, opposing Sonia Gandhi taking over as AICC president on grounds of her foreign origin.

The party thereafter allied with the Congress at the national level and also in Maharashtra.