Pune . Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday rejected Nationalist Congress Party (SP) chief Sharad Pawar’s allegations that police vehicles were being used to deliver money to ruling party candidates ahead of the assembly elections. Fadnavis is in Pune to meet party workers, ahead of the assembly elections on November 20. Earlier in the day, Pawar had claimed that police vehicles were being used to deliver money to candidates of ruling parties in Maharashtra ahead of the assembly elections.
Addressing reporters in Baramati, Pawar said he wanted to speak more publicly on the issue but was refraining from doing so as it would hurt officials who have shared information with him. Speaking to reporters here, Fadnavis said the NCP (SP) chief was delusional because such things used to happen when the opposition parties were in power. Fadnavis expressed confidence that the rebel NCP candidates from Daund and Purandar seats will withdraw their names.
The BJP leader said that he has urged senior leader Gopal Shetty to think about the party. Earlier this week, Shetty, a two-time Lok Sabha member from Mumbai North, had said he would file his nomination papers from Borivali as his name was not in the fourth list of candidates announced by the BJP. Shetty had met Fadnavis after not getting the ticket from Borivali seat.
Talking about the meeting, the Deputy Chief Minister said, “He is our senior leader and I have urged him to think about the party. He has followed party discipline. I’m sure he’ll still do the same. His anger is understandable.” Shetty, who won from the Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat in 2014 and 2019 by a margin of more than four lakh votes, was not given a ticket in the 2024 general elections. BJP candidate and Union Minister Piyush Goyal won this seat. BJP has made Sanjay Upadhyay its candidate from Borivali. Shetty has filed his nomination papers as an independent candidate.
