Sharad Pawar slams Fadnavis over ‘come back’ jibe, says don’t take voters for granted; even Indira, Atal had lost

MUMBAI: Taking aim at the BJP, NCP president Sharad Pawar has said politicians should not take voters for granted as even powerful leaders like Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee had been defeated in the elections. Criticising former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis over his ‘Mi punha yein’ (I will come back) refrain during the last year’s Assembly polls, Pawar said voters thought this stance smacked of arrogance and felt that they should be taught a lesson.

He also added that there was not an “iota of truth” in reports about differences in the three ruling allies — Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress — that are part of the Uddhav Thackerayled Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.

The veteran leader said he was neither the headmaster nor the remote control of the MVA and made it clear that Thackeray and his ministers were running the government.

The former Union minister said this in an interview by Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, who is also the Executive Editor of party mouthpiece ‘Saamana’.

The first of the three-part interview series was published in the Marathi daily on Saturday.

This is for the first time that a non-shiv Sena leader has featured in a marathon interview series in this newspaper.

In the past it had published such interviews of late Bal Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray. Replying to a query over BJP’S defeat in the last Assembly polls in the state, Pawar said: “In a democracy, you cannot think that you will remain in power eternally. Voters will not tolerate if they are taken for granted. Even powerful leaders with a mass base, like Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had been defeated.

“It means that in terms of the democratic rights, the common man is wiser than the politicians. If we politicians cross the line, he teaches us a lesson. Therefore, people do not like the stand that ‘we will come back to power’,” he said.

“No politician should take people for granted. Nobody should take a stand that he would return to power. People thought that this stand smacks of arrogance and hence feeling grew among them that they should be taught a lesson,” Pawar said.