For the first time, Sharad Pawar has admitted, on record, that he had "deliberately misled" people following the 1993 Mumbai blasts by saying there were 12 and not 11 explosions, adding the name of a Muslim-dominated locality to show that people from both communities had been affected.

Spilling the beans on what became an ill-concealed secret in later days, but had never been said openly, Pawar said he had to quickly find a way to stop Mumbai from going up in flames and this was the ploy he hoped would keep Hindus from retaliating.

The step was pre-meditated as only shortly before making the announcement about the 12th blast that never was, he had been informed of 11 coordinated blasts in the city in March 1993, all hitting Hindu majority areas.

Speaking to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV's Walk the Talk, which will be broadcast tomorrow at 7.30 pm, Pawar, who was Maharashtra Chief Minister at the time said he had anticipated clashes between Hindus and Muslims and he had to prevent that from happening.

"I went on TV and deliberately misled people. Instead of 11 explosions I told 12 and one of those areas was Masjid Bunder, dominated by minorities," Pawar said.

And then at the Air India office, where the first explosion had occurred, Pawar came up with another "deliberate fudge" to prevent riots.

He had said then that from some of the material used in the blasts, it appeared that terrorist groups south of India were behind themhinting at the LTTE.

The NCP president, who is Agriculture Minister in the UPA government, conceded that questions were indeed raised in the party on this step. He was in the Congress then and had been sent to Mumbai by P V Narasimha Rao to put the city back in order in the wake of the riots that had led to a sharp polarisation between Hindus and Muslims after the Babri Masjid demolition.

Pawar said the polarisation of those days was creeping back after the July 11 train explosions. The bombs had been planted in first-class compartments of the Western Railway suburban line to target those from the higher salaried sections, as very few Muslims would be in those compartments.

It was because of this that there were "similar experiences" like 1993 after things had turned around for Mumbai and it was "behaving like a cosmopolitan city".

The Minister, whose NCP is a partner in the Vilasrao Deshmukh government in Maharashtra, praised the police after the latest attack on the city but was critical of the state government's role following the blasts. "There was tremendous scope to improve," he said.

In his interview, Pawar praised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's handling of the nuclear issue on which he is facing opposition from the Left and the BJP.

He said the discussions with the US are not final and if there was any indication of India being dictated to on the nuclear deal, he believed Manmohan Singh would "withdraw from the scene".

In his estimate, the PM could not be compared to Indira Gandhi who was also party president, he said, but was nonetheless a visionary and an administrator. "He is a fit person to run a coalition government and each MP and UPA member is clear about his integrity and wisdom," Pawar said.

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