FILE photo: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and NCP leader Ajit Pawar
A complaint has been lodged against Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar for allegedly threatening to cut off water supply to a village in Baramati while asking for votes. The complaint was filed by Suresh Khopade, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate from Baramati where Mr Pawar's cousin, Supriya Sule is seeking a second term.
(India Votes 2014: full coverage)Mr Pawar is purportedly seen in a video, warning villagers of Masalwadi that they would lose water supply if they did not vote for Ms Sule, whose father, Sharad Pawar, is the chief of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). But the deputy chief minister dubbed the video as fake, accusing the AAP of trying to frame him.
(Did Ajit Pawar use water threat with voters? A video controversy.)"It is not my voice. It's an act to defame me," Mr Pawar said yesterday, adding that he would file a complaint against Mr Khopade.
Sharad Pawar had also backed his nephew, saying, "Ajit has not at all said so."
The Election Commission has also sought a report from the Chief Electoral Officer of the state on the matter.
(Read)Baramati, the NCP chief's old constituency, is home to thousands of sugarcane farmers and falls in one of Maharashtra's most drought-prone regions.
The AAP had claimed that in the grainy footage, shot on a mobile phone, Mr Pawar can be heard saying, "We could see on the voting machine which village has voted for whom... I was the one who bought water to the village after lot of efforts and if you don't vote for us, I will stop water supply to the village."
Last year, Ajit Pawar had to apologise after a huge controversy erupted over his remarks at a water-starved village - "If there is no water in the dam should I urinate into it?"