Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing it of destabilising elected governments in states led by Opposition parties, even as it boasted of providing a stable government at the Centre.
Addressing a rally in Beed, the home district of rebel NCP leader and cabinet minister Dhananjay Munde, in central Maharashtra, Pawar said, “The policy of the current rulers is to widen the wedge in society using caste, religion and language as tools. You talk of providing a stable government but break duly elected governments in states.”
Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pawar said that the PM should have visited the ethnic strife-hit Manipur, and understood the pain of the people. The north-eastern state has been hit by ethnic violence between the Meitei and Kuki communities since May 3, which has so far taken the lives of over 160 people.
The NCP supremo also said that PM Modi is following into the footsteps of his party colleague and Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis by including a ‘mi punha yein’ (I will come back again) element in his Independence Day speech.
During his Independence Day speech, PM Modi had asserted that he will come back to the Red Fort to address the nation on August 15 next year, too, implying the BJP-led NDA alliance will win the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
“Fadnavis did not return as CM (after 2019 assembly polls), but came back at a lower position. One wonders what will he (Modi) return as,” he quipped.
On rising inflation, Pawar, a former Union agriculture minister, said rates of fertilisers have risen, but the government is not bothered about the issue which concerns farmers.