Mumbai: A day after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah questioned Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar’s work in the last 50 years, Mr Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule hit back reminding him that it was the Narendra Modi government that awarded the Padma Vibhushan to Mr Pawar. If it wasn’t for his work, what had they conferred it on him for, she questioned.

Ms Sule was addressing a campaign rally at Daund in the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency from where she is seeking to be re-elected. She is pitted against the BJP’s Kanchan Rahul Kul.

Mr Shah on Friday questioned Mr Pawar’s work in Maharashtra saying, “Mr Pawar boasts about the development he has carried out in Maharashtra. But can he give an account of what he has done for this state? All he has done successfully is to master the art of staying in power for the past 50 years.”

Mr Shah also said that Maharashtra had fallen behind rapidly in terms of industrial growth in the 15 years that the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine was in power in the state.

Turning the tables on Mr Shah, Ms Sule said, “The Padma Vibhushan was conferred on Mr Pawar by your government only, yet you ask what he did for 50 years? If he didn’t do anything, why did you bestow such an important honour on him?”

She further said that the fact that 11 rallies were going to be held in Baramati went to show that the constituency had become important to all.

Speaking at the rally, Mr Pawar said that he was “terribly afraid” as to what Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who once called Mr Pawar his mentor in politics, would do next.

“Mr Narendra Modi says he came into politics by holding my finger. But now I am terribly afraid, because what this man will do, nobody knows,” the NCP chief Sharad Pawar said.

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