In the Congress circles, he is the quintessential rebel; but to the Maharashtrians, he is the true upholder of Maratha spirit. If something like a third front comes onto power in this Lok Sabha election, an ICC president elect Sharad Pawar would be one of the strongest contenders for the Prime Minister’s post. Currently contesting the election as Nationalist Congress Party supreme, Pawar is known as the undisputable hero of Baramati---an essentially agricultural stretch in Western Maharashtra, one hundred and five km from Pune. The seasoned politician with a 32 years’ triumphant track record openly nurtures an ambition of becoming the most powerful man in the country. He condemns communal forces and the leaders that preach communalism for that matter and fans Maratha sentiments as his electoral campaign slogan. This leads the former BCCI president to fresh cricket controversies and in the process he drags our master blaster into it too.

While this seasoned politician brands the Gujrat CM Narendra Modi as the frontline leader of communal forces, Modi chose to mock back branding Pawar as a politician who failed to gauge the game of his own party, Congress. While these two heavyweight politicians continue with their campaign war in Maharashtra, they drag another Maratha Manoos into controversy much to his surprise and he is none other than country’s cricket maestro, Sachin Tendulkar.

The Prime Minister aspirant from Maharshtra, Pawar, earlier commented that a person from Maharshtra should be given the chance to become Premier of the country; Modi fired back saying, “….if Pawar had of any substance, he should at least see to it that a Maharashtrian becomes captain of the Indian cricket team.” Modi also said that pitching Pratibha Patil, a Maharashtrian, as presidential candidate, Congress played a shrewd game against Pawar for blocking his prime ministerial ambition once and for all. He mocks the NCP leader by saying that despite his many years’ involvement with the party, he could not sense the Congress ploy of sidelining him from the race for the topmost chair in the country’s political scene.  

To this Modi sarcasm, Pawar retorted back saying, he actually offered the post of captain to Sachin Tendulkar after Rahul Dravid resigned as captain. But it was the cricket maestro himself who refused to accept the honor. Pawar also disclosed that it was Sachin who recommended Dhoni’s name as the next skipper of Indian team. “This communal leader has come to Maharashtra (for campaigning) but people of this state would never accept his ideology that divided the society, Pawar signs off quite regally.

Comments

Add New RSS

3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

Newer news items:

Older news items: