Former union minister Sharad Pawar on Tuesday rubbished union home minister Amit Shah’s remarks that the BJP’s victory in the November 20 Maharashtra assembly polls ended the politics of betrayal and treachery started by him in 1978.

“I was the chief minister in 1978. I am not aware about his whereabouts then,” Pawar told reporters in Mumbai. “When I was the chief minister, there were people like Uttamrao Patil from Jan Sangh in my ministry,” Pawar added.

The decorum of the post of home minister should be maintained, the NCP (SP) chief said, bemoaning the lack of communication between present political leaders.

“There used to be ‘susanvad’ (good communication) between political leaders earlier but that is missing now,” he said.

"The victory of BJP in Maharashtra ended the politics of instability and backstabbing started by Sharad Pawar in 1978. You (people) have buried such politics 20-foot in the ground," Shah had said, addressing a state-level convention of BJP in Shirdi on Sunday.

Pawar recalled that then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had made him the vice-chairman of the Disaster Management Authority after the Bhuj earthquake despite being in the opposition.

“This country has seen many excellent home ministers, but none of them was externed from his state,” Pawar said, in an apparent reference to Shah being externed in 2010 from Gujarat for two years in connection with the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. He was acquitted of all charges in 2014.

“When he (Shah) could not stay in Gujarat (after being externed), he went to Balasaheb Thackeray for help,” Pawar said.

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