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This is an archive article published on May 10, 2024

PM tells Sharad Pawar better to join us; NCP (SP) chief says no, flags Modi remarks on Muslims

At an election rally in Maharashtra’s Nandurbar district, PM Narendra Modi urged Sharad Pawar to join hands with the ruling Mahayuti coalition in the state instead of talking about merging with the Congress

Sharad Pawar Modi"Prime Minister Modi is repeatedly taking a stand against one particular community. We will never join hands with those who adopt such a stand,” Sharad Pawar told reporters in Pune on Friday. (File/ Express Photo by Pavan Khengre)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday mocked NCP (SP) leader Sharad Pawar’s recent statement that smaller regional parties may come closer to or merge with the Congress in the coming years. Without mentioning his name, Modi called Pawar’s party the “nakli (fake) NCP” and said it would be better if it joined the BJP-led coalition in Maharashtra “with pride” than merge with the Congress and “die in four days”.

Pawar responded to the Prime Minister’s jibe, saying he would never ditch the Nehru-Gandhi ideology and join hands with those who adopt an anti-Muslim stand.

Speaking at a rally in Maharashtra’s Nandurbar district, Modi said: “For 40-50 years, one tall leader from Maharashtra has been in politics. These days, he is making wild statements. After the Baramati election, he is frustrated and disappointed. After discussing with a lot of people, he made a statement. He has said that if smaller regional parties have to survive in politics, they will have to merge with Congress.”

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“It means nakli NCP and nakli Shiv Sena have made up their minds to merge with the Congress,” he said, referring to Pawar’s party and Uddhav Thackeray’s party, which are part of the opposition INDIA bloc.

“Chaar din baad Congress mai jakarke marne ki bajay, seena taan karke humare Ajitdada aur Shindeji ke saath aaoo, aapke sabhi sapne poore ho jayenge. (Instead of merging with the Congress and dying four days later, join hands with Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde with pride, all your dreams will be fulfilled),” he said.

Incidentally, in an interview to The Indian Express on May 4, Pawar had said: “In the next couple of years, several regional parties will associate more closely with the Congress. Or they may look at the option of merging with the Congress if they believe that is the best for their party.”

Asked whether that applied to his own party, the NCP (SP), he had said, “I don’t see any difference between the Congress and us…. Ideologically, we belong to the Gandhi, Nehru line of thinking.”

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On Friday, Pawar hit back at the Prime Minister, accusing him of “taking a stand against one particular community”, and stood by his stand that he follows the Nehru-Gandhi ideology.

“We admire the Nehru-Gandhi ideology. We will not go anywhere and will not leave the ideology. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made some comments about the Muslim community in his speeches. I have heard them. If we have to take this country forward and remain united, we will have to take all communities together. We cannot sideline one community and think of moving ahead,” he said.

“Prime Minister Modi is repeatedly taking a stand against one particular community. Public opinion is building up against him and that is why he is feeling uneasy and making such statements. Modi might be feeling our need, but we will never join hands with them by leaving the ideology that we have embraced,” the veteran leader said.

“Today, our parliamentary and democratic system is in danger. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren have been arrested and put in jail. These arrests cannot happen without the role of the Central government and the central leadership,” Pawar said. “Prime Minister does not believe in our democratic system. We cannot join hands with any person, party or ideology that does not have not faith in our parliamentary democracy.”

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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