Continuing his attack on the Maharashtra government and Home Minister Anil Deshmukh over ‘extortion’ allegations, Former Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday countered the claims made by NCP chief Sharad Pawar.
Addressing the media, Fadnavis said that Pawar was not given a proper briefing, wrong things were said by him, and the attempt which was made to protect Deshmukh has been exposed.
He stated that according to the police manifest, Deshmukh was scheduled to go to Mantralaya on February 24 at 11 am. “However, I will not comment on it since I don’t know whether he went or not,” he said.
“In the period from February 15 to 27, Home Minister Anil Deshmukh was not in isolation and he had met several people, including officials,” said Fadnavis.
The former CM also said that NCP should find out who was behind giving the wrong briefing to Sharad Pawar, that he rejected the demand for resignation or conducting a probe into the matter
“Ideally, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray should have spoken about it,” Fadnavis said.
Further, the Opposition leader said that he will be demanding a CBI inquiry into the alleged transfer racket of IPS and other police officers in Maharashtra.
Fadnavis said that a similar racket was brought to his attention during his tenure and that those involved were arrested.
“An intelligence report dated August 25, 2020 was submitted to the DGP Subodh Kumar Jaiswal by IPS Rashmi Shukla and in turn the DGP very next day forwarded to ACS home for appropriate further actions. ”
Accusing the government of punishing Commissioner of Intelligence Rashmi Shukla, who has worked under three governments, Fadnavis stated that no action was taken on the intelligence report filed over the matter and instead
He also said that CM Thackeray might have realised the seriousness of the issue, but despite that, he did not act when the GAD department comes under him.
Surjitt Sahani
