Ketaki Chitale arrestedKetaki Chitale arrested

The Octogenarian Marathi politician Sharad Pawar, once seen an alternative to any prime minister seems to be hogging the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Ever since the death of Sushant Singh Rajput and the community sentiment turning against the MVA government in Maharashtra, it seems his popularity has been going downhill.

A Marathi actress Ketaki Chitale wrote in a Facebook post – a Marathi poem about a person with surname as Pawar aged 80 having physical ailments like the revered politician.

It is alleged that Ketaki Chitale had intentionally disparaged Pawar, his illness, appearance, voice and also called him corrupt.

The whole state machinery unleashed on her. On Saturday, she was booked by the Thane crime branch police under sections 500 (defamation), 501 (printing or engraving defamatory matter) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) of the Indian Penal Code.

She was initially detained and then declared arrested by the police.

Not only this, the 29-year-old Ketaki was produced before the Weekend magistrate on Sunday who remanded her in police custody till May 18.

Sharad Pawar is Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supreme leader and a member of the Rajya Sabha.

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Earlier Nikhil Bhamre, a 21-year-old student, also from Maharashtra (resident of Nashik district) was booked for a tweet he put out aiming at Pawar without directly naming him.

Time has come for Baramati’s Gandhi……to create Nathuram Godse of Baramati”, his tweet said.

Baramati in Pune district is Pawar’s birthplace as well as constituency.

The news is just in that his supporters – described by some media outlets as “NCP goons”, have slapped the BJP spokesperson for Maharashtra Vinayak Ambekar who was sitting on his desk and conversing with them, perhaps having an argument.

A video of the attack was posted by the state BJP chief Chandrakant Patil.

“Maharashtra Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Pvt. Vinayak Ambekar has been attacked by NCP goons and on behalf of BJP, I strongly condemn this attack. These NCP goons must be dealt with immediately!” reads a rough translation of the Marathi caption.