Accusing Sharad Pawar of first using the word “Hindu terror”, Maharashtra’s leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis targeted the NCP supremo for "appeasement policy and politics," besides polarising the society on communal lines.
Fadnavis, a former two-time Maharashtra chief minister and senior BJP leader, put out over a dozen tweets coinciding with the birth anniversary of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, the chief architect of India’s Constitution, launching a broadside against Pawar, a four-time chief minister and three-term union minister.
“….and guess who was the first person to use the word ‘Hindu terror’,” he said and tagged an online news report which said that Pawar was the first to use the word “Hindu terror” later picked up by subsequent home ministers - Sushilkumar Shinde and P Chidambaram - both from the Congress. The news article referred to the twin blasts at Malegaon on September 29, 2008, in which six persons were killed and 100 others injured.
Fadnavis posted a series of tweets against Pawar on The Kashmir Files and various incidents.
“And we’ve been hearing various statements by Pawar ji on The Kashmir Files…it’s not surprising at all. In fact, they are totally in line with NCP’s decades old track record of appeasement policy and politics and polarising the society on communal basis,” he said.
“Why such double standards when we expect communal harmony? Why does a movie based on real testimonials of sufferings of Kashmiri Pandits disturb someone? Just because it doesn’t suit the pseudo-secular agenda?" Fadnavis said, adding the movie is not against any religion but it is against those who chose to look the other way when people were suffering, because they felt that it suits their political agenda of appeasement, thereby achieving a communal divide.
Fadnavis pointed out that NCP minister Nawab Malik was arrested by the ED for money laundering linked activities of Dawood Ibrahim, the chief conspirator of the March 1993 serial blasts.
He also pointed out that in 2013, the NCP went on record saying Ishrat Jahaan was innocent. “Not only Ishrat Jahan was called ‘innocent’ but senior leaders of have extended help to her and even went to the extent of demeaning the IB even though they themselves were in power at that time,” he said.
“In 2012, when the Congress and NCP were in power in Maharashtra, the shameful Azad Maidan violence happened in the heart of Mumbai. The Amar Jawan Jyoti was desecrated but NCP, which held the home ministry portfolio, was soft on Raza Academy and changed the Mumbai police commissioner instead,” he said.
Fadnavis said that the NCP has grand plans on bringing a Muslim quota in Maharashtra even though the Constitution does not provide such a provision. “Shameful how vote bank politics prevail over Constitutional values,” he said.
“What happened when Mumbai cried? On 12 March 1993, when Mumbai was shaken with 12 bomb blasts, Pawar ji invented a 13th blast in a Muslim area. Instead of law and order, appeasement was his first priority,” he added.
In another jibe, he said: “It is ideal if political parties seek implementation of reforms but they say implement Sachar Committee first “.
Fadnavis concluded by saying that such acts and approach of disturbing the harmony of the society cannot be accepted in Dr Babasaheb's India.
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