On Tuesday, Kokate, who is facing criticism for playing an online card game during the recent legislative council proceedings, addressed a press conference giving a clarification of him playing rummy and also his past utterances. “I did not play rummy, I was trying to skip the popup of the ad for the game. I will be suing for defamation all those who posted the video,” said Kokate. On his previous remark a few months back where he had claimed that “nowadays even beggars don’t take ₹1 but the state government has given crop insurance to farmers at ₹1. However, some farmers have misused it”, the NCP minister said that it was actually the state “which was a beggar” as they “were taking ₹1 from farmers.”
CM Devendra Fadnavis slammed Kokate’s comments. “If he has said that statement (on state being a beggar) then it is extremely wrong. We are investing ₹5,000 crore each year in the farm sector. In the next five years we are going to put ₹25,000 crore,” said Fadnavis.
