Mumbai, June 13: The Shiv Sena on Wednesday took a has accused Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar for playing “dangerous” politics. It also alleges that this type of politics is “destabilising” social harmony in Maharashtra. The Sena slammed Pawar through an editorial in its mouthpiece ‘Saamana’, for his comments terming the people arrested for inciting the Bhima-Koregaon violence earlier this year as innocent.

In the editorial, the Sena also alleged Pawar of posing hurdles in the police investigation into the Bhima-Koregaon violence. The editorial said, “What Sharad Pawar does is his outlook, but his politics is destabilising social harmony in the state.” The Sena also questioned Pawar that on which grounds he has claimed that the persons arrested by the police for their alleged role in instigating riots in Bhima-Koregaon were innocent.

In its mouthpiece ‘Saamna’, The Sena also lambasted the former union minister for not doing anything during the riots. The Shiv Sena said that he did not come out “on the streets” to calm people when “Maharashtra was burning” after the Bhima-Koregaon incident.  The editorial also said that instead of coming in front of cameras and asking people to maintain peace, the NCP chief created a dilusion that Hindutva organisations were behind it.

The Sena in its editorial accused the NCP chief of behaving in the same way when he was Maharashtra’s chief minister in 1993. The editorial said that Pawar failed to set things right after the blast of 1993 and let Maharashtra burn.

After the Pune Police recently arrested five people in connection with the January 1 caste violence at Bhima-Koregaon in that district, the NCP chief had questioned the arrests. On June 10, at a function marking the NCP’s 19th anniversary and the culmination of the party’s “hallabol” campaign in Pune, Pawar had said, “Some progressive people in Pune came together and organised the Elgar Parishad. Now, the government is arresting some of them and branding them Naxalites.”

(With inputs from PTI)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 13, 2018 06:33 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).