Two days after a news agency reported that NCP chief Sharad Pawar wanted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to replace Devendra Fadnavis as BJP's chief ministerial candidate if he were to go with the PM's party to install the government in Maharashtra, Pawar told a private news channel that it was Modi who proposed to him that the two should work together at the Centre.

Pawar told ABP Majha on Monday that when he met the PM to request for relief for rain-affected farmers, Modi asked him whether they could work together. "I refused saying that it wasn't politically possible for me because I was running a small party which has a big following in Maharashtra and was given a different route (anti-BJP)," he said.