A day after Amit Shah termed NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar as “corruption ka sargana” (Godfather of corruption) and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief as “leader of Aurangzeb fan club”, the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders hit back at the Union Home Minister, saying that the latter’s comments were “laughable”.
Rubbishing Shah’s comments against the two of its top leaders, the MVA leaders said that both Pawar and Uddhav were respected leaders and such remarks by the Union Home Minister were unwarranted.
NCP (SP) Working President and Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule said: “Such comments are laughable because it is the BJP-led NDA government that has bestowed the coveted Padma Vibhushan award on Pawar saheb considering the volume of work done by him in various fields of activity for the last 60 years”
Taking a dig at the Union Home Minister, Supriya said that when Shah was addressing the office bearers’ rally in Pune, she saw BJP leader Ashok Chavan in the same frame. “Ashok Chavan, was sitting behind him…so 90 per cent of the people who have been accused of corruption by BJP are in BJP today because of the washing machine…I have never said a word about Chavan Saheb but it is the BJP which used to call him corrupt, but today he is part of the BJP,” she said.
Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson and Uddhav’s close aide Sanjay Raut also came out in defence of the Sena (UBT) chief. “Shah has described Uddhav ji as the leader of Aurangzeb fan club…but we are not part of the Jinnah fan club”.
“We never went to Jinnah’s grave in Pakistan and offered flowers or ate Nawaz Sharif’s birthday cake in Pakistan. Basically, there is nothing wrong in taking the side of nationalist Muslims in the country. Muslims have also contributed during the struggle of this country,” Raut said.
Raut was referring to veteran BJP leader L. K Advani’s visit the Jinnah’s grave in 2005 and Prime Minister’s surprise air-dash to Pakistan to greet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on his birthday.
It may be recalled that on June 4, 2005, Advani had visited the mausoleum of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. In a press release issued on the same day, the BJP had quoted the following message written by Advani in the Visitors’ Book at the Jinnah Mausoleum..”There are many people who leave an inerasable stamp on history. But there are very few who actually create history. Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was one such rare individual. In his early years, Sarojini Naidu, a leading luminary of India’s freedom struggle, described Mr. Jinnah as an “Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity”.
“His address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947 is a classic, a forceful espousal of a Secular State in which every citizen would be free to practise his own religion but the State shall make no distinction between one citizen and another on the grounds of faith. My respectful homage to this great man,” the BJP had quoted Advani as writing in the visitors’ book at the Jinnah Mausoleum.
The second example that Raut alluded to was Prime Minister Modi’s surprise visit to Pakistan on December 25, 2015 to meet and greet Nawaz Sharif on the latter’s birthday. He was received by Sharif with a warm hug at the tarmac of Lahore airport, on his arrival from Afghanistan by a special Indian Air Force Boeing 737 plane. Modi later took a chopper to proceed to Sharif’s Raiwind palatial residence in the outskirts of Lahore to celebrate the latter’s birthday.
