Working on plan to boost economy of eastern part of Pune district: Sharad Pawar

Nationalist Congress Party (SP) chief Sharad Pawar on Tuesday said that he is working on a plan to boost the economy of the eastern part of Pune district for which he is in touch with experts, the state and central government.

At a traders’ meet in Baramati, Pawar said that he will be spending more time to bring industries to Baramati, Indapur, Daund, Purandar and the neighbouring areas (eastern part of Pune district) in order to create more jobs.

“We have to now think of how the economy of this region can be strengthened. I am preparing a separate plan by talking to some experts, the state government and Centre. At this point, I can only say that during the elections, we confronted each other. Narendra Modi even attacked me personally. However, to boost the economy and trade of this region, I will not hesitate in taking help from all of them,” Pawar said.

Earlier in his speech, Pawar said that the people of Ayodhya had demonstrated how to correct the ‘politics of temple’ by defeating the Bhartiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) candidate in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) town in the recent Lok Sabha (LS) elections. The former Union minister highlighted that while the BJP had secured more than 300 seats five years ago, this time, their count had dropped to 240, well short of the majority.

“The result shows that they (BJP) got 60 less seats and in this, UP is a key state as the people there gave a different kind of verdict,” Pawar said. He added that while he had anticipated that the Ram temple would be the election agenda and the ruling party would get votes in its name, the people of this country had been wise.

“When they (the people) realised that votes were being sought in the name of the temple, they decided to take a different stand and the BJP had to face defeat,” the veteran politician said. In a major upset in the Faizabad parliamentary constituency where the temple town of Ayodhya is situated, Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Awadhesh Prasad defeated sitting BJP MP Lallu Singh by a margin of 54,567 votes in the recent elections.

Pawar, a key member of the INDIA bloc, said that the opposition was apprehensive about the temple being used as an election agenda but the people took a different stand. “While we were scared of the temple being used as an election agenda to seek votes, the people of Ayodhya showed how to correct the ‘politics of temple’ (by defeating the BJP candidate),” the former Union minister said.

He asserted that democracy in India is intact, not because of politics but due to the ‘collective conscience’ of the people. “For the last 10 years, those in power have taken extreme stands, but the people have brought them back to the ground. Narendra Modi formed the government but not on his own – by taking the help of Chandrababu Naidu (Telugu Desam Party) and Nitish Kumar (Janata Dal United),” Pawar said.