Pawar vows to ‘bring Maharashtra on right track’

Pune: NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar has said he will not rest until he brings Maharashtra on the “right track” regardless of how old he is.

Be it 84 or 90, this old man will not stop, the octogenarian politician said on Monday at Phaltan in Maharashtra’s Satara district.

He was speaking during the induction of NCP leader Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar’s brother Sanjeev Raje Naik Nimbalkar and Phaltan MLA Dipak Chavan into the NCP (SP).

The former Union minister said he saw some young members of his party carry banners with his pictures on them.

“On those banners, I was described as an old man of 84 years. But you do not worry, because be it 84 or be it 90, this old man will not stop. This old man will not rest until he brings the state on the right track and I am sure of getting your help,” the NCP (SP) supremo said.

He accused the Eknath Shinde-led dispensation in the state of indulging in corruption.

On the collapse of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s statue at the Rajkot fort in Sindhudurg district in August, the former Maharashtra chief minister alleged that the incident shows there was corruption in the construction of the statue.

“It is the policy of those who are in power to indulge in corruption in every sector and that is why it is your and my responsibility to take out the power from their hands,” he said. Meanwhile, Pawar said the Election Commission is the final authority to decide the poll symbols and their allotment. He was responding to a query on the Chief Election Commissioner not accepting the NCP (SP)’s request to freeze the trumpet symbol available in the free list of symbols.