BJP is playing threat letter card for sympathy vote: Pawar

TIL Desk/National/Pune/In the wake of recovery of an alleged Maoist letter suggesting to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar said the Bharatiya Janata Party was trying to generate sympathy by playing a “threat letter card”.

Speaking at a function marking the 19th anniversary of the NCP as well as the culmination of the party’s “hallabol” campaign, Pawar said the people would not fall prey to the BJP’s attempts to generate sympathy. A string of rallies and protests were held under the NCP’s ‘Hallabol’ campaign against the BJP-led Maharashtra government which was launched in Yeotmal in east Maharashtra last December.

According to police probing the January 1 Bhima-Koregaon caste violence, a letter found in the house of a person arrested for alleged Maoist “links” talks about the ultras’ mulling “Rajiv Gandhi-type incident” and suggesting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be targeted during his “road shows”.

The letter was recovered from the house of Rona Wilson who was among the five people arrested from Mumbai, Nagpur and Delhi in connection with ‘Elgar Parishad’ held in Pune in December and the subsequent Bhima-Koregaon violence in the district. Pawar alleged the government was branding some “progressive” people as “Naxalites” for organising the event.