SENA HITS OUT AT PAWAR OVER HIS BHIMAKOREGAON COMMENTS

MUMBAI: After Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar claimed that people arrested for the Bhima-koregaon violence are innocent, the Shiv Sena on Wednesday criticised him for playing ‘dangerous’ politics. In its mouthpiece ‘Saamana’, the Shiv Sena alleged that the NCP is ‘destabilising’ social harmony in the state. Pawar made the statement last week while speaking at a function to mark the 19th anniversary of his party.

It does not not befit a former chief minister to create hurdles in investigations into the Bhimakoregaon violence, the editorial said, wondering whom Pawar was trying to protect. The Sena also questioned the grounds on which Pawar had made claims.

The Sena also criticised Pawar for not coming out “on the streets” to calm people when “Maharashtra was burning” after the Bhima-koregaon incident. “Instead of coming in front of cameras and asking people to maintain peace, Pawar created an impression that Hindutva organisations were behind it.”

The Sena pointed out that Pawar had behaved like this in 1993, too, when he was Maharashtra’s chief minister.

A day after bomb blasts rocked Mumbai in March 1993, he visited the Bombay Stock Exchange and inaugurated the restart of trading, but he “failed to set things in order after the blasts and let Maharashtra burn”.