More trouble is in store for Maharashtra govt

Even as it is struggling to handle the Covid-19 surge in the state, the ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is battling the political crisis following the allegations levelled by former Mumbai top cop Param Bir Singh and now suspended police officer Sachin Vaze

Even as it is struggling to handle the Covid-19 surge in the state, the ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is battling the political crisis following the allegations levelled by former Mumbai top cop Param Bir Singh and now suspended police officer Sachin Vaze.

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MVA also suffered a setback on Thursday after the Supreme Court (SC) refused to stay the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe ordered by the Bombay high court into the corruption allegations against former home minister Anil Deshmukh.

Latest in the row faced by the ruling coalition are the allegations made by Vaze, who is in the custody of National Investigation Agency (NIA) for his role in the Antilia explosives case. Echoing the charges made by Singh, Vaze in a letter has claimed that the top MVA ministers had asked him to extort money from entrepreneurs and establishments. He named Deshmukh and transport minister Anil Parab in the letter.

With SC allowing the CBI inquiry, MVA will have to face further embarrassment, as Deshmukh would be called for the same in the coming days.

While Deshmukh had to resign as home minister following HC’s order for probe against him, another minister, Sanjay Rathod, who handled the forest portfolio, had to step down after his name was dragged in a case pertaining to the suicide of a Tiktok star in Pune.

The allegations made by Vaze have given fresh salvo to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On Thursday, Union information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar, in a press conference, demanded the resignation of MVA government on the grounds that Vaze’s letter has exposed the coalition government. He also made a scathing attack by terming MVA as “Maha Vasooli Aghadi” and said the common minimum programme (CMP) of the coalition government is to “collect money through the police.”

“The Vaze controversy, planting of a bomb by police and “vasooli” by the home minister of a state … the list goes on. Such pervasive corruption shows the character of the ruling alliance in Maharashtra. They have no right to remain in power and we demand their resignation,” Javadekar said in Delhi.

State BJP also stepped up its attack on MVA, with party chief Chandrakant Patil saying that the allegations by Vaze and Singh are related to “organised crime” by ministers, and need to be probed under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (Mcoca).

“If the evidence comes out on paper, provisions of Mcoca will have to be invoked for investigation against MVA ministers... Maharashtra is a fit case for imposing President’s rule,” Patil told reporters, adding that two more ministers will have to resign in the coming two weeks.

Responding to the allegations, state Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief and water resources minister Jayant Patil said that people have started believing that BJP is behind all the developments, as BJP leaders seem to be knowing what will happen next.

“People have started believing that those [BJP] who want to dispel MVA government are behind these allegations. BJP leaders were saying that they will take more wickets [force more ministers to resign] in the next two-three days and then the media gets a letter from NIA written by Vaze, in which he has made allegations against some more ministers. Therefore, it appears that first BJP leaders had created an environment of suspicion and then NIA disclosed some information. Whether this means probe or politics needs to be investigated,” Patil said, casting aspersions on the role of the central investigation agencies in the entire issue.

Political analyst Prakash Bal said that BJP wants to bring down MVA government, which is now obvious, but the MVA government, especially chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, is not confronting them and without it BJP will not back down.

“Thackeray should have at least taken up the issue of vaccination shortage. The way Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan castigated the Maharashtra government, Thackeray should have come out openly and said that the Centre is not providing them with adequate vaccine doses to deliberately create a crisis in the state,” Bal said, pointing out to fresh clashes between MVA government and the Centre after state health minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday pointed out the shortfall of vaccine doses in the state which has led to shutting down of vaccination centres in many parts of the state.

Responding to it, Dr Harsh Vardhan said he has been witnessing “misgovernance and utter casual approach on part of Maharashtra government in battling the virus” throughout the year.”

Bal added, “The MVA government is failing to take BJP head on. Unless they become aggressive, BJP will try to push them to the wall. TMC (Trinamool Congress) chief Mamata Banerjee is a perfect example for them [MVA] as she is facing a similar situation in West Bengal but is fighting back fiercely.”

On Thursday, the state crossed the 3.2 million-mark after 56,286 new cases took the tally to 3,229,547. The death toll breached the 57,000-mark after 376 fatalities on Thursday took the figures to 57,028.