Last Updated:
Ajit Pawar with uncle Sharad Pawar. (PTI file photo)
Seeking to blame the BJP minister for negative impact in voting, Ajit, whose wife lost in Baramati to Supriya Sule by over 1.5 lakh votes, said Patil should not have made the statement against his uncle
Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar has expressed unhappiness over state BJP minister Chandrakant Patil’s comment on Sharad Pawar during the recent Lok Sabha election campaign.
Seeking to blame the BJP minister for negative impact in voting, Ajit Pawar, whose wife lost in Baramati to Supriya Sule by more than 1.5 lakh votes, said Patil should not have made the statement against his uncle.
Patil, while addressing reporters in Baramati, had made clear his intentions to defeat Sharad Pawar in his stronghold. He had accused the NCP patriarch of undermining the 2019 election mandate that favoured the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance by taking away the Shiv Sena, despite the alliance securing 161 MLA seats.
“I and my party workers want defeat of Sharad Pawar in Baramati and that is enough for us,” Patil had said during electioneering.
Ajit Pawar had then responded to Patil’s remarks, saying, “Sharad Pawar was not a contestant for Baramati Lok Sabha seat. It was a wrong statement made by Patil, and after he said it, we asked him not to campaign in Baramati.” “I had said it then and I am saying it now. People didn’t like his (Patil’s) statement that he had come to Baramati to defeat (Sharad) Pawar,” Ajit Pawar told reporters on Thursday.
His latest statement, coming after his wife lost to Sule, is being seen as an attempt to put the onus for the poll debacle to the “negative impact” Patil’s remarks had in the constituency.
Sule, daughter of NCP founder and Ajit Pawar’s uncle Sharad Pawar, bagged 7,32,312 votes as against 5,73,979 votes polled by Sunetra and won by a margin of 1,58,333 votes.