Mumbai, Jan 31 The Maharashtra government on Friday formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the conspiracy allegedly hatched to frame Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis (who was then the leader of opposition in the state assembly) and his current deputy Eknath Shinde in a false case during the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was in power.
Fadnavis was then Leader of Opposition in the assembly while Shinde was a member of the Uddhav Thackeray Cabinet holding the urban development ministry. Shinde, however, rebelled against Thackeray, and after the collapse of the MVA government, Shinde took over as CM in June 2022 with Fadnavis as his deputy.
The SIT will be headed by Satyanarayan Chaudhary, joint commissioner (Law and Order) of Mumbai Police and it comprises Rajiv Jain, DIG SRPF, Navnath Dhavale, Mumbai Police DCP Zone 6 and Adhik Rao Pol, ACP. The SIT has been asked to submit its report to the government in 30 days.
The issue was raised by BJP legislator Pravin Darekar through a point of information in the upper state council during the winter session in Nagpur.
He had demanded a probe by a SIT into the alleged conspiracy. Cabinet minister Shambhuraj Desai, speaking on behalf of the MahaYu government, said the issue raised by Darekar was serious and told the house an SIT headed by a senior IPS officer will be formed to probe the matter.
Darekar said audio clips purportedly linked to the conspiracy were played on TV channels. He further claimed he was in possession of a pen drive containing an audio clip of purported conversation between former Maharashtra director general of police Sanjay Pandey and then-ACP Laxmikant Patil.
He claimed that in the audio clip, Pandey is purportedly heard asking Patil, then posted in adjoining Thane city, to register a case and arrest Fadnavis and Shinde, now a deputy CM in the MahaYuti government.
Earlier, Fadnavis in August last year claimed that a conspiracy was hatched by the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) regime in the state to arrest him in false cases "not just once but four times".
Fadnavis, who was the Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly during the MVA rule, was responding to former Mumbai Police Commissioner Parambir Singh's allegations that there was an attempt to implicate him in various cases earlier.
"The claims made by Parambir Singh regarding attempts to arrest me and BJP leaders are real. Such an attempt was made during the MVA government. The former Mumbai Police chief has narrated only one incident, but they tried to arrest me not once but four times. A conspiracy was hatched to arrest me by making false cases," Fadnavis said at a press conference.
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