PUNE: PM Narendra Modi bemoaned on Tuesday a trend in which “people nowadays create a lot of hullabaloo and lose sleep if we decide to rename even a road after a prominent Indian figure instead of a foreign invader”.
Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde, deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, and former Congress Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde — a trustee of the trust that gives the annual Tilak award — were present when Modi was honoured.
Attention, though, was riveted to Modi and Pawar, who exchanged smiles and pleasantries soon after the PM stepped on the dais. Pawar shared stage with Modi the first time after the split in his NCP when nephew Ajit joined the Shinde-Fadnavis government in the state.
Modi was speaking in the context of iconic national leaders such as Sardar Patel standing their ground amid stiff opposition by then British rulers to the installation of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s statue at Ahmedabad’s Victoria Garden — set up in 1897 — to commemorate the Queen’s diamond jubilee.
Holding forth from a stage where he was conferred the Lokmanya Tilak National Award in Pune in the presence of NCP chief Sharad Pawar on the 103rd death anniversary of Tilak, the PM mentioned no recent renaming controversies. But such tiffs have long shadowed BJP and its governments.
Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde, deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, and former Congress Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde — a trustee of the trust that gives the annual Tilak award — were present when Modi was honoured.
Attention, though, was riveted to Modi and Pawar, who exchanged smiles and pleasantries soon after the PM stepped on the dais. Pawar shared stage with Modi the first time after the split in his NCP when nephew Ajit joined the Shinde-Fadnavis government in the state.
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