After Uddhav Thackeray, RSS-backed Paper Now Goes All Out Against 'Opportunistic' Sharad Pawar

Mumbai: A day after targeting Uddhav Thackeray for his ‘chowkidar chor hai’ comment, RSS-backed Marathi daily 'Tarun Bharat' has now trained its guns on NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

The strongly-worded, bitter editorial calls Pawar "Maharashtra's shrewd, opportunistic and conniving leader”.

The paper takes potshots at Pawar’s political aspirations and writes, "Even in this old age, his political aspiration for gaining power has only been rising. If there is anything he has mastered, it is the art of speaking the right thing at the right time. His politics has always been based on selfishness. The only image he could earn in all the eight decades of his existence is that of distrust. He never does what he says, and never speaks of something he is planning to do."

Commenting on Pawar’s politics, it said, "He didn't have any problem to unilaterally announce support to the BJP during the last elections. Just the way he does not have qualms about singing paeans of Sonia Gandhi after separating from the same party over two decades ago because of her."

The paper goes on to say that Pawar is an opportunist who has now suddenly discovered the sacrifices made by the Gandhis.

"He has suddenly realised that the Congress is a great party and that the Gandhis have made many sacrifices for the country. This might be a part of his good timing. He has also suddenly got restless about the Maratha reservation in Maharashtra. He worries that it will not stand the court's scrutiny. He must have forgotten that he couldn't even touch the issue when he was in power. He must have been stung by the fact that the BJP government did something his government could not do for years," it stated.

The editorial shamed him for creating a rift in the society by raising doubts about Maratha reservation.

"He had so many ways of expressing his concern. He could have directly spoken to the Chief Minister and other community leaders would have backed him. But he chose to speak at an obscure public function which had nothing to do with the issue. Such is this nautankibaaz king!"