Tejas Navale

Pune: Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, for the first time, publicly expressed his stance on the statement made by the state's higher and technical education minister, Chandrakant Dada Patil, and termed his statement as wrong. Ajit Pawar was talking to reporters in Pune yesterday. At that time, he commented on many issues.

Earlier, in one of the interviews with reporters in Baramati, minister Chandrakant Dada Patil of the BJP made a statement that defeating Sharad Pawar in Baramati was his and his party's primary goal. Over this statement, much uproar was seen in Baramati, and various leaders publicly slammed Chandrakant Dada Patil over his remarks.

In the last public meeting for Supriya Sule in Baramati before the voting, Karjat Jamkhed MLA Rohit Pawar showed a video of Chandrakant Patil in the meeting and criticised the BJP for their evil mentality. He alleged that to destroy Sharad Pawar is the sole motto of the BJP, and this is exactly what was said by their party leader, referring to Patil's statement.

Supriya Sule also termed the statement made by Chandrakant Patil as disheartening. After this, many followers of Sharad Pawar and loyal activists and leaders of opposition parties started asking questions to Ajit Pawar over his silence on this issue.

Yesterday, when Ajit Pawar was being asked by reporters about this, he said that the statement made by Chandrakant Patil was extremely wrong and agreed that they had made a mistake. Ajit Pawar said, "After I learned about his statement, I asked him to refrain from making such statements henceforth, and after that, he has been silent on that issue."

Ajit Pawar further said that Sharad Pawar is not contesting the election, and therefore, the matter of their defeat cannot arise. He said that Sunetra Pawar and Supriya Sule contested the election, and hence one of them will lose the election.

Sharad Pawar, in his interview with the Indian Express newspaper, spoke about the possibility of merging small political parties with Congress after the Lok Sabha elections. Over this, Ajit Pawar said that sometimes Sharad Pawar makes such statements to create confusion among the people. Sharad Pawar only does what he thinks is right. Ajit Dada also said that he did not think that Uddhav Thackeray would merge his party with Congress.