Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Monday denied that there was any rift between him and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde amidst speculation that their relations had soured as he had not paid a visit to ‘Varsha’, the CM’s official bungalow in Mumbai, during the recent Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. He also kept mum on the possibility of his wife Sunetra contesting from Baramati in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. “I could not make it to the chief minister’s official bungalow during Ganesh aarti as I was busy visiting Ganesh mandals in Pimpri-Chinchwad and Pune city… I did not do it deliberately,” Pawar said while interacting with reporters in Baramati where he had come to launch a cleanliness drive on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. “I must have visited 60 Ganesh mandals in Pimpri-Chinchwad and 15 in Pune city. I also visited Lalbaugcha (Raja) Ganpati and Siddhivinayak in Mumbai. And therefore I could not go there (CM’s bungalow).Do not blow up the news unnecessarily,” he added. Pawar also refused to comment when asked if his wife Sunetra would contest from the Baramati constituency in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. “I am hearing this from you.,” he told a reporter. He denied that he had an argument with minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Chhagan Bhujbal during an official meeting last week where the latter had said that OBCs were not getting job opportunities and had argued that though there were government job vacancies, recruitment was not taking place. “'There was no dispute with Bhujbal…When he gave out some figures, I asked him whether the information was authentic. Then I asked the chief secretary whether people from this category [OBC] were working with the state government. The chief secretary said the government does not have complete information about it. Then I told Bhujbal that we should collect the information first,” Ajit Pawar said. Asked about the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board notice to Baramati Agro headed by MLA Rohit Pawar, who belongs to the Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP, Ajit Pawar said, “The notice is not sent to anyone deliberately. The agency sending notices is doing its job. Once we reply to the notice, the topic ends. No one should try to give a political angle to this. Even my unit had gotten such a notice. While running a unit, one should give a thought to the environment…,” he said. On the ‘Wagh Nakh’ (tiger claws) controversy – the weapon is set to be brought to the state from London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and questions have been raised about whether or not it was actually used by Chhatrapati Shivaji – Ajit Pawar said he will place the matter before the next cabinet meeting. “'Historians have different views about the Wagh Nakh…Some officials from the government are going to London to bring it back. It will remain in Maharashtra for the next three years.I am going to place this issue before the cabinet meeting for discussion,” he said.
