MUMBAI: Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray blasted Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar for forging an alliance with the Congress and said the NCP chief had lost the opportunity to bury the Congress party in Maharashtra.
In an editorial in the party mouthpiece, Saamna, published yesterday, Thackeray accused Pawar of double standards. The NCP leader, Thackeray said, advocated on one hand that a Maharashtrian should become the prime minister while on the other he had entered into an alliance with the Congress.
Pawar, Thackeray said, will have to explain to the people how Maharashtra can have a prime minister by aligning with the Congress.
Thackeray said that Pawar deceived his own trusted aides and forced former deputy chief minister R.R. Patil, presently the state president of the NCP, to resign on the grounds that he had mishandled the situation after the Mumbai terror attacks.
Praising former Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Thackeray said Deshmukh could not be taken for granted. "Don't underestimate Deshmukh, he is the kind of leader who will not remain silent after losing power. He is a person who will work in the party after losing power and by this, he sends a message to the people that he still exists and is very much active. In fact, Deshmukh wanted to teach Pawar a lesson, and was insisting on the Congress high command to contest all the 48 Lok Sabha seats on its own without going in poll alliance with the NCP. Deshmukh even had a list ready of the 48 Congress candidates, but some of the senior party leaders shot it down and were keen to have alliance with the NCP," Thackeray added.
