The slur against Sharad Pawar by Union Home Secretary Amit Shah was as quick to be followed by a stinging counter to the Home Minister himself by the NCP supremo.
During a public function, Pawar said, “A few days ago, the home minister Amit Shah abused me & said some things about me.
He said Sharad Pawar is the chief of all the corrupt people in the country. Strangely, the man who today is the home minister of the nation was a man who had misused the law of Gujarat, and for this, the apex court has expelled him from Gujarat. ”
Pawar said this in reference to Amit Shah, who had earlier been implicated in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. In this case, he was externally expelled from Gujarat in 2010 for two years before getting a clean chit in 2014.
The veteran politician further commented on the credentials of the Home Minister by saying, “The one who was banished is the Home Minister of the country today. So, we should think about where we are heading for.
The way the people whose hand I am taking are taking this wrong path, we must think over it; otherwise, they will 100 per cent take the country onto the wrong path. We must pay heed to this. ”
The quarrelsome exchange between the two leaders is perceived in the growing political polarisation of the country. Before this, on July 21, Amit Shah had angered the opposition by invoking Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s time in the Shiv Sena to target Maharashtra’s NCP chief, Sharad Pawar, stating he was the Sargana, meaning the kingpin of corrupts of this country.
Shah has also criticized the Opposition alliance, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), and Sharad Pawar concerning the circulated alleged milk powder import circular in the state.
The Home Minister also blamed Pawar for ‘freezing’ the Maratha reservation whenever his party came to power in the state and asserted that the reservation would be carried on if his party came to power.
With the political rhetoric getting more intense, Pawar and Shah do not seem to be backing down from the confrontation as the gulf between the BJP and the opposition parties widens.
