Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar having different views on Adani not…: Kapil Sibal

Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Sunday said Sharad Pawar and Rahul Gandhi having different opinions on Sharad Pawar is not an example of disunity in the opposition.

Both are allowed to have their views. “You should allow different parties to have different views. We should allow Rahul Gandhi to have a view on an individual and Sharad Pawar also have his point of view. That should not be an example of disunity,” Kapil Sibal said in an interview with news agency PTI.

“If Rahul Gandhi has a point of view in the context of crony capitalism in India, I think Sharad Pawar ji would not be averse to a platform relating to crony capitalism, that subsumes individuals. So what we need is to have these broad platforms on the basis of which we can ensure that the Opposition is united,” he said.

Political parties can have differences but from a broader perspective, the possibility of consensus is much greater, Sibal said. “If you narrow down issues then you will have differences among political parties. If you have a broad collaborative platform which does not deal with narrow issues, the possibility of consensus is much greater,” the former Union minister who quit Congress last year said.

Sharad Pawar’s statement on Adani in an interview with the NDTV has created speculations over opposition unity as Sharad Pawar expressed his opinion against a joint parliamentary committee probe into the alleged Adani scam — the main issue the Congress raised in the last Parliament session.

Pawar clarified that in a JPC, the ruling party has the majority and so a Supreme Court-appointed committee would be better than a JPC. But he reiterated that there are more important issues for the opposition to concentrate like unemployment, inflation and the agrarian crisis.

Congress and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party have been allies for decades. In Maharashtra, they formed Maha Vikas Aghadi with Shiv Sena and came to power in 2019.

While the Congress maintained that notwithstanding Sharad Pawar’s persion view on Adani, NCP supported the demand for the JPC, Sharad Pawar on Sunday differed with the opposition and said he does not think PM Modi’s degree is an issue.