Ajit Pawar has denied threatening to cut off water supply to voters
Maharashtra politician Ajit Pawar has said that a video purportedly showing him threatening to cut off water supply to a village in Baramati while asking for votes is fake. He has accused the Aam Aadmi Party of using a doctored video to frame him.
"It is not my voice. It's an act to defame me," Mr Pawar, a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party, said today, adding that he would file a complaint against Suresh Khopade, the Aam Aadmi Party's candidate from Baramati.
The video, shot on a mobile phone, reportedly shows Mr Pawar warning villagers that they would lose their water supply if they did not vote for his cousin Supriya Sule, whose father, Sharad Pawar, is the NCP chief.
Sharad Pawar also backed his nephew today, saying, "Ajit has not at all said so."
Supriya Sule is seeking a second term from Baramati, her father's old constituency, which is home to thousands of sugarcane farmers and falls in one of Maharashtra's most drought-prone regions.
The AAP claimed that in the grainy footage, Mr Pawar, the deputy Chief Minister, 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."
A young man, who kept asking why water supply to the village remains erratic, was allegedly thrown out of that meeting on Mr Pawar's orders.
The AAP candidate has complained to the police against Mr Pawar.
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?"