NASHIK: Borrowing a quote from former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar on Saturday responded to his political adversaries raising the matter of his age, saying he was “neither tired nor retired”.
“My political adversaries must refrain from attacking me on age-related matters. Instead, they should speak on matters of ideology,” he told reporters in Nashik. Pawar’s nephew, Ajit Pawar, who led the recent rebellion within the party and took oath as deputy CM, had suggested that his uncle should retire from politics due to his age.
Addressing a massive rally in Yeola later in the day, the veteran leader also apologised to the people for “selecting the wrong candidate” for the constituency in the past. Chhagan Bhujbal, Sharad Pawar’s close confidante, who recently switched to the Ajit Pawar camp and joined the Shinde-Fadnavis government as a minister, is currently representing the Yeola assembly constituency. Without naming Bhujbal, he said his assessment of the constituency’s current legislator was wrong.
Commenting on the remarks of another former confidante-turned-rebel, Praful Patel, that Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule was being promoted within the party, the NCP patriarch reminded him that he (Patel) had been a Union minister for a decade despite losing the Lok Sabha polls.