Mumbai, Jul 24 (PTI) Nationalist Congress Party leaders Jayant Patil and Sunil Tatkare, who now belong to rival factions headed by Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar, respectively, on Monday hugged and shared a brief chat in the Maharashtra Vidhan Bhawan complex.

The party had suffered a vertical split on July 2 after Ajit Pawar and eight MLAs, including Chhagan Bhujbal, Hasan Mushrif and Dilip Walse Patil, joined the Eknath Shinde government.

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Tatkare, a Lok Sabha member from Raigad, and Rajya Sabha MP Praful Patel chose to align with Ajit Pawar, while Jayant Patil, who is state unit chief of the undivided outfit, chose to stay with party founder Sharad Pawar.

As per eye witnesses, Patil, who noticed Tatkare in the corridor of the legislature complex, hugged the latter and the two had a brief cordial chat for a few minutes, details of which were not immediately available.

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Incidentally, after the split, the Ajit Pawar faction had announced the appointment of Tatkare as Maharashtra unit chief replacing Patil.

The Sharad Pawar faction had responded by removing Tatkare and Praful Patel from the primary membership of the party and also sought their disqualification as parliamentarians for "anti-party activities".

The Sharad Pawar faction had also said appointments made by the Ajit Pawar faction were illegal.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)