Mumbai: Anyone with self-respect would have quit, NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar said on Monday amid demands that Maharashtra minister Dhananjay Munde resign after his close aide Valmik Karad was held in a case linked to the abduction and murder of sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh in Massajog, Beed.
Despite mounting pressure from the opposition and some Mahayuti allies, Munde has refused to resign, insisting he has no connection to the case.
Pawar, however, expressed concern over the state’s image, also pointing to NCP minister Manikrao Kokate, who was recently sentenced to two years in prison for using forged documents to obtain housing meant for the Low Income Group.
“The situation in Maharashtra is troubling,” Pawar remarked, highlighting the ethical decline in politics. He criticised the Mahayuti government for lacking moral responsibility, stating, “In the past, leaders facing such allegations would resign, allowing investigations to proceed. But I doubt this government even understands moral obligations.”
When asked if Uddhav Thackeray’s MPs might switch allegiance to Eknath Shinde, Pawar dismissed the idea, saying, “I recently had a meeting with MPs from NCP, Congress, and Uddhav Thackeray’s party. We discussed matters for two to three hours, and no one expressed any intention of defecting. Uddhav’s team remains united in their ideology.”
Responding to Eknath Shinde’s warning to Thackeray “Don’t take things lightly”, Pawar retorted, “I don’t even understand what this ‘Don’t take it lightly’ means. As far as I know Marathi, that phrase doesn’t exist.”
Pawar on Monday expressed concern over the chain of events that forced the Maharashtra government to suspend MSRTC bus services to neighbouring Karnataka.
The state government ordered the suspension of Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation buses to Karnataka on Saturday after an attack on a vehicle of the undertaking and its driver Bhaskar Jadhav in Chitradurga there on Friday night allegedly by pro-Kannada activists.
On the same day, a conductor of the state-owned transport corporation bus of Karnataka was allegedly assaulted in Belagavi bordering Maharashtra for not replying to a girl in Marathi.
"Such suspension of bus services should be avoided because it affects the common people. Such suspension causes inconvenience to the people," Pawar told reporters in Mumbai.
Meanwhile, Pawar downplayed the political tussle that erupted after he conferred the Mahadji Shinde award to Shiv Sena leader and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde at an event in Delhi recently.
"The Marathi-speaking people living in Delhi came together and constituted the Mahadji Shinde award. On the same day, it was given to Eknath Shinde. I was there, hence, I gave the award to Shinde. Apart from him, 14 other people were also felicitated at the same event but focus remained only on Shinde," he said.