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.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has rejected the demand for an apology, calling the meeting a "misadventure".
"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.
Mr Pawar, whose party had broken its alliance with the Congress ahead of the assembly elections in Maharashtra in 2014 and was later perceived to be moving closer to the BJP, has been to attacking the BJP-led national coalition.
"All these problems are being avoided and to avoid people's agitation, they are involving Pakistan to invoke people," Mr Pawar said, accusing him of having demeaned the office of the prime minister by leveling baseless allegations.
