"All is well,” said deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, while describing the Mahayuti ahead of the Assembly polls. He dismissed news reports that he was upset and stormed out of the cabinet meeting on Thursday because of differences with the chief minister.

Pawar was taking questions after inducting movie star Sayaji Shinde into the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Friday evening. “The news reports are absolutely false,” he said, admitting that he did leave the meeting after clearing important decisions that were already known to him as the finance minister.