Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar took thinly veiled jibes at Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Pune on March 6.
Mr. Pawar, who shared the dais with Mr. Modi and Mr. Koshyari and other leaders during the Prime Minister’s public address at the city’s MIT College ground, criticised the Governor over his recent controversial remarks on the 17thcentury Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji and the 19th century social reformers Savitribai and Jyotirao Phule.
“I want to bring it to the Prime Minister’s notice that in recent times, some people in important positions [referring to Mr. Koshyari] have been uttering statements which are unacceptable to anyone in Maharashtra. Chhatrapati Shivaji established ‘Swaraj’ for the ryots [tillers] while social reformers Savitribai and her husband Jyotiba Phule laid the foundation for women’s education in the State… We have to take the legacy of these great personages forward without resorting to politics,” Mr. Ajit Pawar said.
The ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition of the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress had roundly censured Mr. Koshyari for remarking that poet-saint Samarth Ramdas was Chhatrapati Shivaji’s ‘guru’ contrary to historical evidence. Casting Samarth Ramdas in the role of Shivaji’s mentor — despite no concrete evidence on this count — is seen by a section of historians as an attempt to impose Brahmin supremacy over the Maratha community. Mr. Koshyari had also been slammed by the Congress for allegedly mocking social reformers Savitribai and Jyotirao Phule for “getting married at a young age”.
Prior to Mr. Modi’s visit, NCP and Congress activists had protested against the BJP and the PM by waving black flags and raising ‘go back’ slogans against Mr. Modi.
The Prime Minister unveiled a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji inside the Pune Municipal Corporation premises and later inaugurated a 12 km stretch (of the total 32.2 km) of the Pune Metro Rail project, which is being built at a total cost of ₹11,400 crores.
On the eve of the Mr. Modi’s visit, Mr. Ajit Pawar’s uncle — NCP chief Sharad Pawar — on March 5 had taken aim at the BJP and Mr. Modi, remarking that the Metro service was yet incomplete while stressing on the need to focus more on rescuing Indian students stranded in war-hit Ukraine.
“I agree that there are important projects in Pune that are incomplete and the PM will be inaugurating an important one [Metro Rail]...but, rescuing students stranded in Ukraine is more important. I think the ruling party [BJP] ought to be thinking of it more seriously,” the NCP chief had said.
According to observers, Mr. Modi’s visit to Pune city is expected to give a shot in the arm to the local BJP as it gears up to retain its dominance in the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporations ahead of the civic bodies’ polls likely to be held in April this year.
Mr. Modi had laid the foundation stone of the Pune Metro rail project in December 2016 — just ahead of the crucial 2017 civic polls to the two civic bodies — amid political bickering with the Congress-NCP, who claimed credit for the Metro project.
The BJP then went on to bag an unprecedented 97 of the total 162 seats in the 2017 PMC poll while supplanting the NCP from the PCMC (winning 77 of the 128 seats) in a personal blow to Mr. Ajit Pawar, who lost control of his Pimpri-Chinchwad stronghold.
Mr. Modi had again visited the city in 2018 when the BJP under Devendra Fadnavis was in power in the State to inaugurate the third phase of the Pune Metro Rail project.
