All India Congress Committee’s general secretary HK Patil and senior Congress ministers Balasaheb Thorat and Ashok Chavan met the Nationalist Congress Party boss Sharad Pawar on Tuesday evening, apparently in the backdrop of a controversy over Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole’s statement that he was under the watch of the MVA government’s intelligence mechanism and the chief minister and home minister were given every information about his activities.

Before meeting Pawar for rapprochement, Patil defended his party leader at a media conference reiterating Patole’s explanation that his statements were misconstrued and wrongly reported by the media.