Union home minister Amit Shah on Sunday said “everything can’t be made public” when he was asked if he had met Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar in Ahmedabad on Saturday.

The power corridors in Delhi and Mumbai were abuzz with reports of a purported “secret meeting” between NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Shah.

The reports came in the backdrop of the BJP’s all-out effort to topple the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government in Maharashtra using the allegations of corruption levelled against home minister Anil Deshmukh by Param Bir Singh, who was recently removed from the post of Mumbai police commissioner.

Devotees walk around a bonfire during Holika Dahan on the eve of Holi celebrations in Ahmedabad on Sunday. The Gujarat home department had issued a notification on Wednesday banning public celebration of Holi amid a surge in the coronavirus cases. PTI

The BJP has been demanding a CBI probe and resignation of the Uddhav Thackeray government over the charges. Deshmukh is an NCP leader.

“Everything can’t be made public,” Shah replied when asked about reports of “two top Maharashtra leaders” meeting him in Ahmedabad. He did not deny such a meeting.

Shah was in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, his Lok Sabha constituency, on Saturday, the day voting kicked off in Bengal and Assam.

However, Maharashtra minister and NCP national spokesperson Nawab Malik denied any meeting between Pawar and Shah, describing the speculation as the BJP’s way of creating “confusion”.

“It is completely false information deliberately pushed by some people to create confusion. It is something that BJP wants to create some confusion over. Such a meeting has not taken place. There is no reason that Pawar should meet Shah,” Malik said.

Deshmukh on Sunday said a retired judge of the high court would probe the allegations of corruption levelled against him by Param Bir.

The minister told reporters in Nagpur that he had asked the chief minister to initiate an inquiry into the allegations made against him.

“The chief minister and the state government have decided that a retired judge of the high court will conduct a probe into the allegations against me. Whatever is the truth will come out,” he said.

Sena leader Sanjay Raut in his weekly column Rokhthok in the party mouthpiece Saamana wrote that the Maharashtra government did not have a damage control machinery, as was seen when the allegations against Deshmukh were made.

“Deshmukh got the home minister’s post by accident. Jayant Patil and Dilip Walse-Patil declined the post. That is why Sharad Pawar gave the post to Anil Deshmukh,” Raut wrote. He later tweeted: “Bura na mano Holi hai..”