In what may be a guide to Maharashtra politics, MVA alliance partner Shiv Sena (Uddhav ) targetted Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar while the BJP came out in defence of the NCP leader. This even as NCP leaders on Wednesday tried to remove the trust deficit arising due to Ajit’s latest outreach to the BJP.

On Wednesday, Sanjay Raut, Shiv Sena (U), took potshots at Ajit Pawar, questioning why the latter chose to attack him for revealing that NCP chief Sharad Pawar had spoken about attempts to break his party.

“Why are you (Ajit) blaming me? I have just tried to save the Maha Vikas Aghadi, an attempt was being made to remove the foundations of the MVA. I think it’s funny that Iam being attacked for trying to keep the MVA parties together,”said Raut while speaking to reporters.

Raut was referring to Ajit attacking him for disclosing in his column in Saamana about the attempts to poach NCP leaders by the BJP.

While Ajit was miffed that Raut wrote about the column, sources within the NCP and the Uddhav group said that Raut had cleared with NCP Chief Sharad Pawar of revealing in his column about the attempts by the BJP to break the NCP.

Raut claimed that the attempt to break the NCP was foiled because of his column. “They (BJP) went on the backfoot because I exposed it. I have told the truth.” He also exhorted Ajit to expose the BJP conspiracy to break the NCP.

Meanwhile there were attempts within the NCP to repair the damage. Senior NCP leaders Chhagan Bhujbal, Dilip Walse Patil, Sunil Tatkare, Anil Deshmukh and others met Ajit Pawar on Wednesday.