PNS|Nashik
A week after his nephew Ajit Pawar rebelled against him and joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Saturday launched a statewide tour in an attempt to rally the cadres behind him.
The Bharatiya Janata Party was apparently planning to “destroy” state-level parties and this would be harmful for the democracy in the country, the 82-year-old leader said as he spoke to reporters at Nashik, his first halt after leaving Mumbai.
“Na tired hu, na retired hu” (I am neither tired nor retired), he said quoting former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and asserted that he was not going to stop working.
“Who are they to tell me to retire? I can still work,” Pawar earlier said in an interview to Mumbai Tak, India Today’s Marathi digital news channel, referring to Ajit Pawar’s question `you are 82-83, are you ever going to stop.’
At the press conference in Nashik, Pawar said earlier prime ministers, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, never sought to silence the Opposition.
“It appears that the BJP has plans to destroy state-level parties. They have done this in different places. In electoral democracy, the opposition party is as important as the ruling party. But the BJP’s policy is to weaken the Opposition,” he said.
Later, addressing a rally at Yeola in Nashik district — the Assembly constituency of his old party colleague Chhagan Bhujbal who has joined the Ajit camp — Pawar reminded Prime Minister Narendra Modi of his recent remarks about `corruption’ of NCP leaders, and asked him to act against those who are guilty.
“As the president of the NCP….I am saying this in public. If you think anyone is involved in corruption, then use all the powers at your disposal and probe the allegations thoroughly,” he said.
The BJP had targeted Ajit Pawar over alleged corruption during the 2014 Assembly polls. He took oath as Maharashtra’s deputy Chief Minister on July 2.
Without naming Bhujbal, Pawar said, “I erred in trusting some people, but will not repeat the mistake. I have come here to apologise for the same.”
On Ajit Pawar’s claims that there were discussions within the NCP about joining hands with the BJP several times in the past, Pawar said at the press conference that discussions keep taking place all the time, but that did not mean that the decision to go with the saffron party was ever taken. Asked whether he will appeal Ajit and other rebel leaders to return, he said, “Nothing will be done from my end to escalate tensions…. if anyone wants to do a rethink, there is no problem..
