By Admin 
Maharashtra Agriculture Minister Manikrao Kokate is going to get a big shock. Deputy Chief Minister and NCP chief Ajit Pawar has written a letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and proposed a change in the portfolio of Kokate. Sources informed ABP News.
NCP leader Kokate can be probably made the Minister of Sports. At the same time, Dattatraya Bharan will take charge as the new Agriculture Minister. Dattatraya Bharane is the minister of Ajit Pawar faction.
Why can the department be changed?
The development occurred after a major controversy, when a video surfaced in which Cocate was allegedly seen playing Rummi game online on his phone during the assembly session.
NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) MLA Rohit Pawar shared a video of it. There was a lot of controversy after this. Opposition leaders criticized the insensitivity to Cocate amid Maharashtra’s agrarian crisis.
Cocate open poll in investigation
However, Cocate denied these allegations. Claimed that they were trying to shut down a pop-up advertisement. He threatened legal action against the slander.
Later, a legislative investigation led to the imprisonment that he played the game for 18 to 22 minutes. It was expected that Ajit Pawar could demand his resignation, but Kokate was left with warning only after promising to apologize and do not do such behavior again.
What did Manikrao Kokate say?
Manikrao Kokate claimed on Thursday (31 July) that he neither offered to resign nor was asked to leave the post on behalf of NCP or Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. He said, “I recently apologized to the farmers during the interaction with the media if Rummi’s game controversy had hurt their feelings.”
Along with playing Kokate Rummi, he was also in controversies about comparing farmers to beggars. He has also been sentenced by the court in the 1995 housing fraud case. However, the court later postponed the sentence.