Sharad Pawar: Rejected Modi's offer to work together

NCP chief Sharad Pawar, seen here with CM Uddhav Thackeray, said he told PM Narendra Modi he was taking the anti-BJP route. File pic

Two days after a news agency reported that NCP chief Sharad Pawar wanted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to replace Devendra Fadnavis as BJP's chief ministerial candidate if he were to go with the PM's party to install the government in Maharashtra, Pawar told a private news channel that it was Modi who proposed to him that the two should work together at the Centre.

Pawar told ABP Majha on Monday that when he met the PM to request for relief for rain-affected farmers, Modi asked him whether they could work together. "I refused saying that it wasn't politically possible for me because I was running a small party which has a big following in Maharashtra and was given a different route (anti-BJP)," he said.

The talks happened when the NCP boss was forging an axis between Shiv Sena, the Congress and his own party, who are now part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government touted as a precursor to the anti-BJP movement across the country.

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has, meanwhile, ordered withdrawal of cases against those who had protested against the Nanar Chemical Refinery Project, which his party had forced the then CM to scrap. Earlier, he had withdrawn police cases registered against protesters in the Aarey metro car issue.

Thackeray will also review the state government's role in the bullet train project, which is being implemented by a Central government rail company.

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