Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) State President Jayant Patil on Monday denied that he had any meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Pune on Sunday and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has confirmed the same.
Ajit Pawar, who heads the breakaway NCP faction, said that Patil was in Mumbai with NCP President Sharad Pawar and not in Pune as speculated.
Patil himself dismissed the reports that he had met Shah and was now on way to joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
When asked, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP and Chief Spokesperson Sanjay Raut scoffed at the reports and said that Patil is a true NCP loyalist and would not make any such moves, as claimed.
BJP’s Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis also joined in and asserted that there was no Shah-Patil meeting as claimed and termed it as ‘rumour-mongering’ by some persons.
Since Sunday, there were persistent unconfirmed reports by some media that Patil called on Shah at a five-star hotel during his daylong visit to Pune.
The reports also contended that Patil was unhappy in the NCP and was considering options – five weeks after the vertical split in which Ajit Pawar walked out of the party and joined the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP government as a Deputy CM.
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