Mumbai, May 19 (Reporter) Maharashtra NCP (Ajit Pawar) chief spokesperson, Umesh Patil, on Sunday directly attacked Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sanjay Raut, claiming that he opposed Eknath Shinde's candidature for the post of chief minister and accused him of telling lies to cover up. NCP has given a bitter reply to Raut after he talked of Ajit Pawar, state party president Sunil Tatkare and Dilip Valse-Patil as probable candidates for chief ministership. Sharing details of past events, Patil reminisced that during formation of Maha Vikas Aghadi government, Sharad Pawar, supremo of then undivided NCP, had announced Uddhav Thackeray's name for post of chief minister and had publicly stated that Thackeray did not want to be the chief minister at that time. But Raut was against Eknath Shinde becoming chief minister and then names of Ajit Pawar, Sunil Tatkare and Dilip Valse-Patil cropped up, so Thackeray had to accept the post of chief minister grudgingly, he explained. There was a understanding between Raut and senior NCP leaders at that time that Thackeray would be chief minister for initial two and half years and then someone else would be chief minister for remaining two and half years, he informed and said that after two and half years, an NCP leader was going to be chief minister. Although the name of that probable candidate was decided, it was kept confidential from senior NCP leaders such as Ajit Pawar, Praful Patel, Sunil Tatkare, he further informed. That person's name was known only to a few NCP leaders, Thackeray and Raut at that time, Patil added and demanded that Raut should make that name public...////...