Anil Deshmukh has denied the charges and said he will sue Param Bir Singh for defamation. (Archive)
New Delhi:
The action against Maharashtra Interior Minister Anil Deshmukh following the corruption accusation against him has created differences in the state’s ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi alliance. A senior alliance leader told NDTV that Mr. Deshmukh has to leave because the corruption accusation against him is “serious.” Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is also of this opinion, he said.
Jayant Patil, Maharashtra minister and head of state unit for Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, to which Desmukh belongs, disagreed however. “The letter (Param Bir Singh’s letter to the Chief Minister) is a reaction after the Chief Minister and the Minister of the Interior of Maharashtra decided to take a tough position. It is not about replacing the Minister of the Interior of Maharashtra,” he said. to NDTV.
A meeting is likely to be held in Delhi tonight between Shiv Sena leaders and CPN chief Sharad Pawar, the leader said.
The ruling alliance has come into controversy after Param Bir Singh, replaced as Mumbai Police Commissioner for “unforgivable” lapses in the investigation out of fear for Mukesh Ambani’s safety, accused Deshmukh of corruption and interference in police work.
Deshmukh has denied the charges and said he will sue Singh for defamation.
The state opposition BJP has called for his removal. “We demand the resignation of the interior minister. If he doesn’t, then the prime minister must remove him,” said Thackeray’s predecessor, Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP. Calling for an impartial investigation, he added: “The letter also states that the Chief Minister was hinted at about this before, so why didn’t he act on it?”
In a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Singh had said that the Interior Minister had asked various agents, including Sachin Waze, who had been arrested in the Mukesh Ambani case, to carry out extortion.
They were set a target of 100 million rupees a month and asked to collect the money from restaurants, pubs, bars and hookah lounges. The lawsuit, he said, was made in February.
Claiming that he has been made a “scapegoat”, Mr. Singh wrote that the Home Secretary had, on several occasions, instructed police officers on how to handle cases and press charges, bypassing him or others. senior officers.
The minister, he said, had been “unhappy” with him for his resistance to complicity in the suicide case in the death of MP Mohanbhai Sanjibhai Delkar against officials in Dadra and Nagar Haveli who would have earned him “political mileage.”
The former police chief also wrote that he had pointed out the “misdeeds” during a briefing at Thackeray’s home following the Mukesh Ambani incident in mid-March. He said that he has also briefed the senior vice minister, Mr. Pawar and other senior ministers. “I noticed that some of the Ministers were already aware of some aspects that I mentioned,” he wrote.
Param Bir Singh was transferred to the National Guard on Wednesday after police officer Sachin Waze was arrested in the case involving a car filled with explosives found near the home of Reliance president Mukesh Ambani earlier this month. . There were allegations that Sachin Waze was linked to the death of a man believed to be the owner of the van filled with explosives.
The investigation was taken over by the National Investigation Agency.
The investigation had become an embarrassment to the state government, with the BJP accusing the Chief Minister of protecting Sachin Waze, who was once a member of the ruling Shiv Sena. Mr. Deshmukh later said that the Chief Minister had decided to remove Mr. Singh because the mistakes made in the investigation could not be tolerated.
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