Genre: News > India Election 2009

March 16, 2009: NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Monday revealed Sachin Tendulkar was offered Indian cricket team's leadership after Rahul Dravid resigned as captain, but the master blaster refused to take charge and in stead suggested M S Dhoni's name for the job.

Pawar was reacting to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's comments that if the former BCCI president had any substance, he should have at least seen to it that a Maharashtrian becomes Indian team's captain.

Modi, during an election rally in Pune on Sunday, had come down heavily on Pawar and the latter's ambition to be first Maharashtrian to become Prime Minister.

Pawar retorted saying Sachin was a Marathi manoos (person) and the Gujarat CM's statement was wrong.

The NCP chief described Modi as the ‘frontline leader' of communal forces in the country, who was responsible for massacring innocents during Godhra riots and tarnishing image of the state.

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Background

Sharad Pawar is the president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which he founded in 1999.

 

He first became a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in 1967 from the Congress ticket.

 

Pawar, who hails from Baramati town in the Pune district of Maharashtra, is the Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in the UPA government.

 

He also served as the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) during 2005-2008.

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