AMID the growing demand for his resignation over accusations of rape and concealing personal information, a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) minister, Dhananjay Munde, petitioned his party boss Sharad Pawar on Wednesday.

Munde has denied the charge of rape saying he was being blackmailed. He said he had a consensual relationship with the elder sister of the accuser and the couple had two children whom he has given his name. “The children stay with my family,” he has said in a prolonged social media post, adding that the mother has been provided for by him in the best possible manner. He said he has moved court in the case seeking justice against the blackmail.