MUMBAI: A week after his Beed rally, NCP president Sharad Pawar is set to embark on a statewide tour in the constituencies of NCP leaders of the Ajit Pawar group.Beed is the hometown of Dhananjay Munde, state agriculture minister and a trusted aide of deputy CM Ajit Pawar.

Sharad Pawar will address a rally in Kolhapur in Western Maharashtra on August 25, in the presence of Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj.

The Kolhapur rally will be followed by one in Manchar-Ambegaon, hometown of NCP leader and cooperation minister Dilip Walse Patil, who had spoken recently about Pawar Senior’s failure to form a government on his own.

Pawar Senior will also address a rally in Gondia, hometown of Praful Patel, who too has joined hands with Ajit Pawar.

“We have drafted a plan for the statewide tour of Sharad Pawar.

Dates will be declared soon,” NCP spokesperson of the Sharad Pawar faction Mahesh Tapase said.Tapase said the NCP had condemned the decision of the NDA government to impose 40 percent export duty on onion, following which onion prices crashed drastically.

“The NDA government must forthwith withdraw the arbitrary export duty.

We are committed to the welfare of farmers,” Tapase said.

Tapase said the manner in which the government dealt with the onion episode reflected oneupmanship between DCM Devendra Fadnavis on the one hand and CM Eknath Shinde and DCM Ajit Pawar on the other.

Fadnavis, who is currently in Japan, swung into action immediately and spoke to Union home minister Amit Shah and commerce minister Piyush Goyal, while Shinde and Ajit Pawar were struggling to make an announcement.