A week after his nephew Ajit Pawar and eight other NCP MLAs joined the Eknath Shinde-led ministry in Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar kickstarted his statewide tour by holding a rally at Yeola, the constituency of rebel party leader and minister Chhagan Bhujbal.
Sharad Pawar on Saturday said PM Narendra Modi has spoken of massive corruption by NCP leaders, so he should punish those guilty. “PM Modi has all the state machinery at his disposal. He should act against these leaders and punish them,” Pawar said, addressing a rally at Yeola in Nashik district.
A week after his nephew Ajit Pawar and eight other NCP MLAs joined the Eknath Shinde-led ministry in Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar kickstarted his statewide tour by holding a rally at Yeola, the constituency of rebel party leader and minister Chhagan Bhujbal.
Pawar’s choice of Yeola, a small town located 250 km north of Mumbai, to begin his party rebuilding exercise is seen as the octogenarian leader’s attempt to rebuild the party. While addressing the BJP booth workers in Bhopal, Modi accused the Nationalist Congress Party of being involved in corruption worth Rs 70,000 crore.
At the Yeola rally, Sharad Pawar also asked rebel NCP leaders not to raise issue of his age, says he will continue to work for party workers. Without naming Bhujbal, Pawar said, “I erred in trusting some people, but won't repeat the mistake. I have come here to apologise for the same.”
Ahead of the rally, his daughter Supriya Sule, a member of Parliament, shared the photo of her father drenched in rain and sitting in a vehicle. In 2019 elections, a photo of Sharad Pawar addressing a rally Satara district of western Maharashtra had gone viral, and won the veteran politician a massive fan following on social media.