Nagpur: Unexpected turn of events put the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Supremo Sharad Pawar in the dock. Pawar dodged some harsh questions posed by a group of intellectual Muslims in a programme held at Hotel Tuli International in Nagpur recently, according to a report in a local daily.
According to the report, The NCP President, instead of replying to the questions, preferred to dodge them saying that he would come again on the same forum at a later date. Vidarbha Muslim Intellectuals Forum had organised a programme wherein Sharad Pawar was the chief guest. He was expected to speak on ‘Issues Before Indian Muslims’. Before his speech, some speakers expressed their views.
Gold Rate
25 April 2025
Most of them appealed to Pawar to understand the problems of Muslims. But, Adv Firdous Mirza posed some tough questions and sought a reply from Pawar. “It is a known fact that Muslims are inclined towards Congress-NCP. Unfortunately, during their regime from 2009- 14, maximum offences were registered against people of our community. We consider you as ours but nobody from your side comes forward and says, ‘You are not wrong’. Are the parties that call themselves secular fooling us? We are confused because a group calls itself secular but does nothing while the present Government in the Centre has done some good things for us like raising the scholarship amount,” said Adv Firdous Mirza.
The report further said that Adv Mirza also pointed out that the Sachar Committee had clearly observed that the condition of Muslims was worse than that of the people belonging to Scheduled Castes. He explained, “We never get our due share in jobs, education. Among minorities, there are some other communities that do not need reservation, but we need it. We agitated in a quiet manner, but nobody responded to it. When the issue of providing reservation to Marathas and Muslims came up, court found Muslim reservation as legal. Despite court calling Maratha reservation illegal, the community got its demand fulfilled, while Muslims are still struggling. In the last two-and-a-half years, we waited for reservations, but in vain!”
Adv Mirza also called for giving more importance to the Urdu medium. He claimed, though students took Urdu language and studied in it, they had to write answers in Marathi. “In competitive examinations and other communications, Urdu should be promoted and we expect your party to take a lead,” he appealed to Pawar.
A stunned Pawar said that he did not expect such a huge crowd from all over Vidarbha for what was supposed to be a ‘closed-door group discussion’. “I have not come here for an election campaign. The issues of any community cannot be discussed in 15 minutes. I agree that the issues are genuine, but we have to sit across, understand the issues, and find solutions to these issues with consensus,” Pawar said.
Pawar agreed with the demand of Urdu getting due importance, but made it clear, “Probably, Maharashtra is leading where Urdu gets due importance. I would suggest looking at Kerala, which has more minority people. Kerala enjoys the highest literacy rate because the minorities there embraced their State language. While respecting other languages, we can not underestimate our State language.” The NCP chief also acknowledged the contribution of Muslims and Urdu in Bollywood’s success.
Dr Aziz Khan, well-known cardiologist, presided over the function. Dr Shakeel Sattar, Raza Baig, Parvez Siddiqui and others shared the dais on this occasion.
