NCP chief Sharad Pawar hits out at Narendra Modi for 'keeping silent' over Kathua, Unnao rape cases

Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar criticised Prime Narendra Modi on Sunday for “keeping silent” over sensitive issues like the Kathua and Unnao rape cases, atrocities committed against Dalits and minorities in the country. Launching a no-holds-barred attack on the prime minister, during the party’s plenary meeting at his Pune residence, Pawar said that the “talkative prime minister” always goes silent on issues that matter to the public. “It was said of (former) prime minister Manmohan Singh that he used to speak little. But prime minister Modi rarely speaks anything on issues that really matter,” Pawar said, according to The Hindu. [caption id=“attachment_4142951” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of NCP chief Sharad Pawar. PTI[/caption] Pawar also accused the party of having an “utterly regressive attitude” towards women, while reminding NCP leaders who had gathered at the meeting that there is an anxiety in the country, and everyone including minorities, Dalits, backward classes, Adivasis, and women are all disappointed with the government. “There’s anxiety among a big section of our society, be it Dalits, minorities, tribals or women. Also, the way the government responds to the issues of these sections or those raised by the farming community, it fails to convince people that it wants to sincerely tackle them,”  The Indian Express quoted Pawar as saying. Terming the BJP ministers’ attempts to defend the culprits in the Kathua and Unnao cases as  “silly” and “puerile”, Pawar according to the report, said that their actions “left many in shock.   During the plenary meeting, NCP had also elected former Maharashtra home minister Jayant Patil as the new president of the state Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) unit, ahead of 2019 state and Lok Sabha polls.  Patil, a trusted lieutenant of Pawar, was elected unanimously. He replaced incumbent Sunil Tatkare. With inputs from PTI