Pawar leads Opposition charge against BJP-Sena in Maha
PUNE: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, 78, has emerged as the main opposition face spearheading the campaign against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena combine ahead of the October 21 Maharashtra assembly elections.
“Abhi to main jawan hoon [I am still young],” Pawar said at an election rally last week in response to his detractors, who have kept reminding him of his age. He added that he will rest only after the ruling alliance is voted out of power.
Pawar, who will turn 79 in December, has been crisscrossing the state as he faces one of the toughest electoral battles of his political life.
Many of his old party colleagues deserted him in the run-up to the elections.
The ruling alliance, too, has focussed its attacks on Pawar, given his emergence as the main opposition face. Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrakant Patil on October 9 vowed to “permanently retire” Pawar from political and social life after the assembly elections. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an event in Nagpur last month and the BJP chief Amit Shah in his public meetings have attacked Pawar. “I can understand the confusion of the Congress.
But Sharad Pawar? I feel bad when an experienced leader like him makes wrong statements for votes,” Modi had said. Shah, too, attacked Pawar, saying, “I want to ask Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and NCP chief Sharadraoji Pawar, Sharadraoji should tell the people of Maharashtra whether you are in favour of scrapping Article 370 or not?”
Political analyst Abhay Deshpande said that the BJP and Shiv Sena have been attacking Pawar since they know that he is the opposition’s face and leading the campaign of both NCP and Congress, which is completely demoralised and leaderless.