Sena candidate declares liquor shop permits in wife’s name in new affidavit

Shiv Sena's Aurangabad candidate Sandipan Bhumre revealed details of wife's liquor shop permits after controversy, defended action as legal.

MUMBAI: After a row broke out over his hiding details of liquor shop permits owned by his family, minister Sandipan Bhumre, who is the Shiv Sena’s candidate from Aurangabad, declared details of two liquor shops in the name of his wife Pushpa Bhumre in a new affidavit. On the defensive, he said there was nothing illegal about it.

Maharashtra has over 18,000 licenced liquor shops, including restaurants and bars, and 90 liquor-manufacturing units (Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)

Bhumre was chosen for the Aurangabad Lok Sabha seat after long deliberations between the Shiv Sena and BJP. He submitted his first affidavit dated April 22, in which he declared his source of income as his MLA salary, rental and agricultural income while that of his wife, Pushpa Sandipan Bhumre, was shown as agriculture.

Following this, the leader of the opposition in the legislative council asked why the Bhumre family, which had liquor shop permits, had not declared these in the affidavit. After the altercation, Bhumre prepared a new affidavit dated April 23, in which he added that his wife had two liquor selling permits at Jalna and Jalgaon.

When questioned by the media why he left out the liquor permits in the first affidavit, Bhumre evaded the question and harped on the fact that there was “nothing illegal” about a liquor permit. “We give revenue to the government through those shops. So what’s wrong with it?” he demanded. On Thursday, when he went to submit his second affidavit, the minister preceded it with a show-of-strength rally at which CM Shinde was present, and who used the occasion to slam Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and his son MLA Aaditya Thackeray for changing political stands “like a lizard changes colour”.