“Always with Sharad Pawar,” says Jayant Patil amid buzz of joining Ajit Pawar camp

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 6 (ANI): Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress (NCP) leader and state unit chief Jayant Patil on Sunday refuted the reports of him joining Ajit Pawar faction who broke ranks with his uncle Sharad Pawar almost one month ago.

“I am always with Sharad Pawar,” Jayant Patil said while talking to the reporters here.

There have been some reports in media about Patil meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday.

The NCP leader outrightly rejected of having met anyone and said he has been in Mumbai and did not travel to Delhi or Pune.

“Who told you this? (that I met Amit Shah) You should ask those who are saying all this. Last evening, I was there at the residence of Sharad Pawar… I have not met anyone…,” Patil said.

Ajit Pawar, along with eight the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLAs, switched over to the BJP-Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde)-led Maharashtra government recently.

Pawar was then sworn in as a Deputy Chief Minister of the state. Maharashtra’s other Deputy Chief Minister is BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis.

However, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday shared the dais with Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar at an event in Maharashtra’s Pune and said the latter is at the “right place”.

“Ajit Dada (Pawar) has come for the first time after becoming the Deputy CM and I am sharing the stage with him, I want to tell him that after a long time, you are sitting at the right place,” Shah said.