BJP slams Sharad Pawar for his remarks on Amit Shah

PTI, Jan 15, 2025, 5:02 PM IST

The BJP on Wednesday slammed NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar for his “tadipaar” remark on Amit Shah and asked the veteran leader to stop spreading “wrong information” about the Union home minister.

This came a day after Pawar attacked Shah for his comments that the BJP’s victory in the Maharashtra assembly polls ended “the politics of betrayal and treachery started by him (Pawar) in 1978”.

Bemoaning the lack of communication among current political leaders, Pawar also asked the Union home minister to maintain the decorum of the post he holds.

In an apparent reference to Shah being externed in 2010 from Gujarat for two years in connection with the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, the NCP (SP) chief had told a press conference in Marathi in Mumbai, “This country has seen many excellent home ministers, but none of them was a ‘tadipaar’ from his own state (externed).” Shah was acquitted of all charges in 2014.

Hitting back at Pawar, BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde told a press conference here, “NCP (SP) leader Sharad Pawar has called Amit Shah a ‘tadipaar’ home minister. Do you know why he was externed from the state?” Shah was externed from Gujarat by a court in the state not because he committed “any robbery or theft”, but in connection with a case of alleged fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, who was a “Lashkar-e-Taiba-linked smuggler”.

“The Gujarat court had said the state home minister (Amit Shah) should not live in the state if an impartial inquiry has to happen in the case. Later, he (Shah) was proved innocent in the case in the Supreme Court,” Tawde added.

He said Shah has called Pawar a “betrayer because he betrayed in 1978”.

“So, if someone makes a political comment, it should be accepted with sportsman’s spirit instead of spreading wrong information,” the BJP leader said.

Both Tawde and Shah described Pawar as a “betrayer” in an apparent reference to his walking out of the Vasantdada Patil-led government in 1978 with 40 MLAs and becoming the chief minister of Maharashtra.

“During your (Sharad Pawar) term, there were talks that people associated with (gangster) Dawood (Ibrahim) travelled in your helicopter. Dawood was running Mumbai when you were the chief minister,” Tawde charged.

The BJP leader asked Pawar if he would have made “such remarks” against V D Savarkar if he had been appointed a minister in the Union government.

“Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani were in jail (during the Emergency) and later they became prime minister and the home minister of the country, respectively. Will you say such things about them also?” he added.