Mumbai: A delegation of BJP leaders, including Devendra Fadnavis, state unit chief Chandrakant Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar and Ashish Shelar will meet Maharashtra Governor BS Koshyari on Wednesday amid extortion allegations levelled against state’s Home Minister Anil Deshmukh by former Mumbai top cop Param Bir Singh.
"The state has been direction-less for quite some time. We want Governor Koshyari to seek a detailed status report from the chief secretary of Maharashtra," a senior BJP leader had said on Tuesday.
The meeting is scheduled for 9.30 am, he said. The meeting will take place amid the BJP's attempt to corner the Shiv Sena-led government over police officer Sachin Waze's arrest in the case related to bomb scare near Mukesh Ambani's house, corruption allegations against Home Minister Anil Deshmukh and the intelligence department's report about alleged bribery in police transfers.
Fadnavis had on Tuesday met the Union Home Secretary in Delhi and demanded a CBI probe into a purported state intelligence department report on `corruption' in police transfers in Maharashtra.
The former Maharashtra chief minister had claimed earlier in the day that he had 6.3 GB data of telephone calls intercepted by then Commissioner of Intelligence Rashmi Shukla in which names of several top police officers figure.
"The Union Home Secretary clearly told me that they will verify the documents and evidence and a report will be submitted to the central government. The government will take appropriate action accordingly," he told reporters in the national capital.
"It is unfortunate that this (Maharashtra) government inducts police officers suspended for 16 years, they plant bombs, try to extort people. Maharashtra needs to be rescued from such situation," he said, apparently referring to police officer Sachin Waze, an accused in the case related to the bomb scare near industrialist Mukesh Ambani's house.
Fadnavis claimed that after a detailed report on intercepted phone calls was prepared, the then Maharashtra director general of police had recommended a CID probe.
"However, since August 25, 2020, there has been no action taken on the report. We want to know the reasons behind it. Who are those people whom the MVA government is trying to protect," said the BJP leader.
On NCP spokesperson and state minister Nawab Malik's claim that Shukla collected this data without due permissions, Fadnavis said there were "enough documents to prove that phone call tapping was officially sanctioned by the government."
Asked why he was not sharing it with the media, he said it contained very sensitive information about Maharashtra police and some politicians and he did not want "innocent people to suffer".
Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Tuesday said he was "extremely disturbed" by the campaign of slander against him and wanted to set the record straight about his hospitalization last month.
Deshmukh is under fire after former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh alleged that the minister had summoned police officer Sachin Waze around mid-February and asked him to help with the 'collection' of money from hotels and bars in Mumbai.
The minister, who has denied the allegations, met chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday evening. "I am extremely disturbed by the slander in various forms of media aimed at maligning my and my department's image," Deshmukh said in a video message.
