Senior Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar faction) leader Jitendra Awhad has written to Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar, urging the immediate disqualification of Agriculture Minister Manikrao Kokate following his conviction in a cheating case.

According to PTI, a Nashik court on Thursday sentenced Kokate to two years in prison in connection with a 1995 case, where he was found guilty of submitting fraudulent documents to obtain government-allotted flats under the Low-Income Group (LIG) category. Despite the conviction, Kokate has secured bail and stated his intention to challenge the ruling in a higher court.