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Union Home Minister Amit Shah had slammed Sharad Pawar at a recent rally. With the exit of many NCP leaders, the BJP had also said that soon it will become a one-man party.
NCP supremo Sharad Pawar’s contribution to the development of Maharashtra cannot be overlooked, the Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ said in its editorial today.
“Pawar’s contribution has been acknowledged by (prime minister) Narendra Modi himself during a visit to (Pawar’s hometown) Baramati. (PM) Modi also called Pawar his ‘guru’,” it said.
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The newspaper referred to Sharad Pawar’s grandson Rohit Pawar’s swipe at the BJP that praising Sharad Pawar on one hand and then asking what had he done for Maharashtra was “politics of double standard”.
Rohit Pawar was the first from the Pawar family to counter the BJP’s barbs, it added. The attacks on Sharad Pawar were continuing even five years after the NCP lost power, the Saamana editorial noted.
“Both Maharashtra and the country are not ruled by Pawar or Congress, BJP-Shiv Sena government is in power for last five years (in the state). The campaign (ahead of coming state elections) should focus on our (government’s) performance,” the editorial said.
The NCP was born out of a split (in the Congress) and now the breakaway group was splintering, it said.
“Political winds change. Parties are formed, they decline. But no party ever vanishes from the political horizon. Everybody in politics should remember this,” it said.
However, the situation within the NCP indicated that Sharad Pawar’s grip on Maharashtra politics had weakened, it said. “In his heyday, Pawar too practiced the politics of breaking up other parties,” it added.