Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar was sharply critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday for "deliberately" misconstruing the dinner meeting at Mani Shankar Aiyar's residence that was attended by former prime minister Manmohan Singh as well. PM Modi, and later the BJP, had linked the dinner meeting for Pakistan dignitaries and attended by Manmohan Singh with the ongoing Assembly polls. The insinuation was that Dr Manmohan Singh had colluded with Pakistan, a charge that Dr Singh has described as "falsehood and canards" and demanded an apology. "He (PM Modi) should be ashamed of accusing him (Manmohan Singh) of this," Mr Pawar, a former defence minister, said at a public meeting in Nagpur to launch protests against the Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra for its failure to handle the agrarian crisis.
