Made minister despite losing LS polls: Sharad Pawar on Praful Patel

A day after Praful Patel, who had been a trusted aide of Sharad Pawar and has now shifted allegiance to Ajit Pawar, alleged that the latter’s daughter Supriya Sule had become the fulcrum of all his actions, the NCP chief on Saturday hit back at Patel, saying that he was inducted as a minister in spite of having lost Lok Sabha elections. Pawar said he was told by several NCP workers that he had not done justice to Sule by not inducting her as a minister in spite of her repeatedly winning Lok Sabha elections.

“Party workers wanted Supriya to enter politics, she fought Lok Sabha polls and won. This is her third term in Lok Sabha and she also served for a small time as Rajya Sabha MP. In her entire career has she received any position of power in the government? When we came to power at the Centre, Suryakanta Patil was made a minister, Agatha Sangma was made a minister. All this happened when Supriya was a Lok Sabha MP,” Pawar said during a press conference in Nashik.

Press conference after the National Working Committee of the Nationalist Congress Party at 6 Janpath, New Delhi today. The press was briefed regarding the resolutions adopted in the meeting. All members of the Working Committee and presidents of all the states expressed….1/2 pic.twitter.com/A4G5uTrwER

— Fauzia Khan (@DrFauziaKhanNCP) July 7, 2023

Patel had on Saturday, in an interview to The Indian Express, claimed that Sule had become the fulcrum of all Pawar’s actions. “There are two main things that led to this decision… one, Sharad Pawar has himself in the past not been shy of allying with the BJP… two, his daughter has become the fulcrum of all his actions, and he has foisted his decision on everyone,” he said.

Hours after the report was published, Patel tweeted, “I completely deny any such conversation regarding Smt Supriya Sule. No such Interview is given by me!”