Baramati voters wise, stand by truth, says Ajit Pawar

KOLHAPUR: Former deputy chief minister and NCP leader Ajit Pawar hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that if the people of Baramati were in slavery no opposition candidate would have contested from there.

Modi, during his rally at Baramati on Thursday, had asked voters to make Baramati free from Pawars’ slavery.

“Baramati voters are wise enough. If they were in slavery, no opposition candidate would have contested in the assembly election or campaigned there. My people have always stood by truth. Modi is getting false information and making statements without confirming them,” Pawar said during his rallies in Satara, Sangli and Ichalkaranji on Friday.

He too said Modi should more worry about the country’s border than campaign for elections. “While a neighboring country is violating the ceasefire, our Prime Minister and the entire Union cabinet is conducting election rallies across Maharashtra. It is negligence of national security,” he alleged.

He accepted that some decisions remained unaddressed due to the alliance government in the state. “We had fast-tracked decisions, but the since it was an alliance government some departments were with our partner (Congress). They hesitated in taking decisions,” he said.

He said the BJP had called back its advertisement campaign portraying Maharashtra as backward state. “They defamed the state and faced the wrath of the people which forced them to call back such false advertisements,” he said.

At Sangli, he attacked Shiv Sena and demanded that the party must explain who is Afzal Khan for them. “Uddhav Thackeray had said that an army of Afzal Khan is coming to Maharashtra to invade, now he must tell the people who he was referring to,” he said.