Mumbai:
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar today said the controversy over his nephew and Maharashtra's Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's comments about urinating in a dam to fill it up should end as the minister has apologised. His remarks came amid increasing demands from opposition parties in the state for Ajit Pawar's resignation.
"His (Ajit Pawar's) speech was inappropriate and improper. Anyone who holds a seat of power must remember that with regard to issues that particularly concern the lives of people, they must be extra careful about what they say. I think his stand on the issue was wrong," the NCP chief said in Mumbai.
"Once a person realises he has made a mistake and has apologised for the same, I think the issue should be laid to rest," he added.
At a rally earlier this month, Ajit Pawar had ridiculed a farmer from Solapur district who had been demanding for the past two months release of water into the Ujani dam.
"There is this person from Solapur, sitting on hunger strike for 64 days demanding water be released from the dam. But where are we going to get water from? Should we urinate? And when we don't have water to drink, it's hard to pass urine as well," he said.
The Ujani dam supplies water to Solapur, one of the worst drought-hit districts in western Maharashtra, where NCP leaders are accused of diverting farm water for industries.
Faced with severe criticism, Ajit Pawar had apologised and said the remark was the "biggest mistake of my political life".
That has not satisfied the opposition parties, which have stalled proceedings of the Budget session in the state assembly and insisted on the minister's resignation.