Rawat was BJP’s priority choice in Pune — Munde

MUMBAI, SEPT 7: Pradeep Rawat was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s choice for Pune Lok Sabha seat, chief minister-in-waiting Gopinath M...

MUMBAI, SEPT 7: Pradeep Rawat was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s choice for Pune Lok Sabha seat, chief minister-in-waiting Gopinath Munde maintained on Monday.

“The names of Pradeep Rawat and Anna Joshi were recommended to the party Parliamentary board with a preference for Rawat,” Munde told reporters who sought details on his and his brother-in-law, another BJP heavyweight Pramod Mahajan’s role in the party’s decision to change the candidate in Pune.

The decision to change the Lok Sabha ticket in Pune was taken by the party Parliamentary board, Munde said without elaborating on why former party MP from Pune, Joshi, figured in the party’s initial list of Lok Sabha candidates. “Munde and Mahajan had nothing to do with it,” he maintained. Both the names were recommended and the priority was for Rawat, he added.

“Anna Joshi is very much campaigning for BJP in Pune, in fact all over Maharashtra,” Munde quipped on the former MP’s whereabouts.

Earlier, Munde who also holds the power portfolio,took a dig at Congress party’s propaganda committee chief, Rajya Sabha member Suresh Kalmadi on the latter’s allegations against the alliance government over the Enron deal. “He (Kalmadi) knows nothing,” Munde said adding that the revised power purchase agreement (PPA) signed by the alliance government with Dabhol Power Company was much better than that signed by the previous Sharad Pawar-led Congress government. The capital cost was slashed by Rs 1,000 crore in the revised PPA despite an addition of another 40 MW to the two-phased project, Munde said.

Earlier, the 2115 MW project needed capital input worth Rs 9,030 crore, which was brought down to Rs 8,030 crore with a 2,170 MW capacity, he said. The cost of Enron power has remained between Rs 3.01 to Rs 3.23 per unit, he said.