MUMBAI: While speaking to reporters on her home turf of Baramati on Sunday, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) working president Supriya Sule said that her potential face-off against sister-in-law Sunetra Pawar in the upcoming Lol Sabha polls is not ‘personal’. Sunetra Pawar is the wife of Sule's cousin Ajit Pawar, the present Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra and the leader of a rival faction of the NCP.  

Amid speculation that Ajit Pawar could field his wife Sunetra to contest against Sule in Pune's Baramati, the three-term MP was quoted as saying “For me, it is an ideological fight. There is nothing personal. (Sharad) Pawar Saheb has stood for a certain ideology and we are committed to it. How can this be a family fight.”

Anyone can contest elections from any place in a democracy, she added.

“I had said yesterday (Saturday) that if they have a strong candidate, then I am ready to debate with that person. They can decide the topic, time, and place. I’m ready,” Sule asserted.

Ajit Pawar had launched a scathing attack on Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule, though without naming them, over the past few days and even said that development work doesn’t happen by getting awards for speeches In Parliament. Sule has won the best parliamentarian award more than once.

Ajit Pawar, a seven-time MLA and one-term MP from Baramati, and several senior legislators broke away from the Sharad Pawar-founded NCP last year and aligned with the BJP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena to join the state government.

Recently, the Election Commission allotted the party's name NCP and its ‘clock’ symbol to the group headed by Ajit Pawar. On February 15, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar held that the Ajit Pawar-led group was the real NCP.

With inputs from PTI.