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‘Small person, won’t comment’, says Pawar reacting to Patole’s remarks

PUNE Days after the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief Nana Patole accused allies Shiv Sena and he Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) of back-stabbing and not fulfilling the promises, Sharad Pawar downplayed the remarks

Published on: Jul 11, 2021, 23:17:38 IST
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PUNE Days after the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief Nana Patole accused allies Shiv Sena and he Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) of back-stabbing and not fulfilling the promises, Sharad Pawar downplayed the remarks.

HT Image
HT Image

Responding to a question on Patole’s allegations, the NCP chief said he need not react to comments by “small people”.

“These are small people. Why should I react? If Sonia Gandhi says something, I will give my reaction,” said Pawar, during an interaction on Sunday in Baramati, his hometown.

Patole, while accusing the allies in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, had asked Congress workers to transform hardships into strength while reiterating his stance of going solo in the upcoming elections

Commenting on complaints from workers that Pune district guardian minister and NCP leader Ajit Pawar was not helping them with their work, Patole during his interaction with party workers in Lonavla, had asked them to keep calm and instead convert the anger into strength.

“The guardian minister is from Baramati. Whose work is he doing? Is he getting work done for our members? You need to convert this hardship into strength. Do not treat this hardship as mental weakness,” said Patole.

The MPCC chief had also accused both the MVA allies of not fulfilling promises.

“It’s fine that they are not giving us our share, it will come to us. But, you need to take a vow that one day, the guardian minister here will be from our party. If they do not want to compromise and backstab while being together, then we won’t say anything, but transform our hardships into strengths.”

Reacting to the post of speaker being with the Congress as part of an arrangement among the MVA allies, Pawar said, “Our decision is clear and the post of speaker is with Congress. Whoever they will decide will be the speaker.”

On going solo in the elections, Pawar said every party has a right to expand the party base and there’s nothing wrong. “There shouldn’t be misunderstanding, even leaders of all three parties say that their parties will fight polls alone. We are together in the government, but not running parties together.”

His remarks came after Patole reiterated that the Congress would go alone in the polls. “I am not going to backtrack on what I said about fighting elections solo. The other day, the CM also appealed [to Shiv Sena workers] to start preparing for polls. If I say something, it becomes a problem, but now that he is saying it then it is okay,” Patole had said on Friday.

  • Yogesh Joshi
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Yogesh Joshi

    Yogesh Joshi is Assistant Editor at Hindustan Times. He covers politics, security, development and human rights from Western Maharashtra.