The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday targeted the Opposition after former IPS officer Ravindranath Patil accused Nationalist Congress Party (SP) member of Parliament (MP) Supriya Sule and Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole of having involvement in a 2018 cryptocurrency fraud case.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra during a press conference in Delhi claimed that the alleged misappropriation was done as per the directions of Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.
Patil was named as an accused in the alleged misappropriation of bitcoins amounting to ₹5 crore, for which he spent 14 months in prison.
He claimed to have access to voice notes where Sule could be heard asking Gaurav Mehta, an alleged witness in the case, to encash bitcoins as funds were needed for elections. He also claimed to have another voice note where Patole was asking then Pune police commissioner Amitabh Gupta about the delay in encashing the bitcoins.
Sule had later denied the allegations by accusing the BJP of resorting to “cheap politics”. “All this is conjecture and innuendo, and I am ready for a debate with any representative of the BJP at a time and date of their choice, in a public forum,” she wrote on X.