Don’t force BJP to open ‘pages from the past’, Maharashtra minister warns Ajit Pawar

Maharashtra minister and senior BJP leader Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Tuesday cautioned Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar against criticising the BJP, warning that such attacks could reopen “pages from the past” that no ally would want revisited.

Addressing a press conference in Pune, Bawankule recalled a mutual understanding reached within the Mahayuti coordination committee ahead of the forthcoming civic elections, under which alliance partners had agreed not to target one another during campaigning, even if they chose to contest the polls separately.

Elections to several municipal corporations in Maharashtra are scheduled for 15 January.

“I expected Ajit Pawar to honour that understanding,” Bawankule said, pointing out that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has refrained from criticising either the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) or the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.

“There are issues from the past, and nobody wants to go back to them. Ajit dada is one of the three key leaders of the Mahayuti, and I hope he will avoid criticising the BJP or other alliance partners.”

Responding to Pawar’s recent remarks targeting the BJP’s Pune leadership over development-related issues, Bawankule said the NCP chief, given his political stature, should avoid personal attacks on what he described as lower-level leadership within another party.

On Pawar’s comment that he was sharing power with parties that had earlier accused him in the alleged Rs 70,000-crore irrigation scam, Bawankule said the matter remained sub judice. “Once the verdict comes, the truth will come out,” he said, adding that the BJP, while in Opposition at the time, had raised allegations based on the evidence then available.

Bawankule also sought to downplay speculation over whether the BJP would raise the Mundhwa land deal in Pune as an election issue. He said the government-appointed inquiry committee was in the final stages of preparing its report and that it would be inappropriate to turn the matter into a poll plank before its findings were made public.

The comments underline growing unease within the ruling alliance as civic polls draw closer, with leaders publicly reminding partners of internal agreements even as political tempers begin to rise.

With PTI inputs