Pawar, Rahul sweet talk on outskirts of Pune

All-India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar held a 20-minute closed-door meeting, on the outskirts of Pune on Tuesday.

The unscheduled meeting between the two leaders came as relations are strained between the two parties over an alliance for the Lok Sabha elections in April.

Attempts were made to keep the media at bay during Gandhi’s visit to the Vasantdada Sugar Institute at Manjri Budruk, 22km from Pune. Institute director-general Shivajirao Deshmukh expressed inability to provide photographs of the two leaders together.
His visit was kept secret and even Pune’s Lohegaon airport authorities and rural police were kept in the dark till the eleventh hour.

The research institute has Pawar as president for life. Dressed in a characteristic white kurta pyjama, Gandhi arrived by a Jet Airways flight from Delhi on Tuesday morning and proceeded directly to the institute. He left Pune for Mumbai by a chartered flight.

At the institute, Pawar, who arrived by helicopter from Mumbai, gave strict instructions not to allow any photographer.

State agriculture minister Balasaheb Thorat told DNA that they did not discuss anything political. NCP leaders from Pune and Mumbai also maintained the meeting was apolitical.