Form of words:
Mumbai: From the tug of war between the state and the Center over the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput to the arrest of the founder of a news network.
From the arrest of a cop for allegedly placing explosives outside the house of industrialist Mukesh Ambani, to allegations of corruption by a senior IPS officer against the then Home Minister.
From the Enforcement Directorate initiating the investigation of the members associated with the ruling parties to the arrest of the Union Minister to the State Government.
In the two years of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, the law enforcement agencies at the Center and the state have been a political battleground for the ruling Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress on one side and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the one hand. . ) on the other. The central law enforcement agencies come under the BJP-led central government.
The ED has taken some action, directly or indirectly, against at least half a dozen leaders belonging to MVA parties. Meanwhile, there have been several incidents involving the state home department and the Maharashtra Police that have sparked controversy, with either political masters questioning the use of law enforcement agencies to meet their needs, or already It is to embarrass an unstable three-party government. ,
While the three allies haven’t always been on the same page, the murmur of disagreements has hardly turned into open discord, with the MVA sailing through the toughest issues.
“This government is stable. People want to see us in power. BJP has also realized that Operation Lotus is not possible here as the gap between 105 (number of BJP MLAs) and halfway point is huge. This was said by former Chief Minister of Maharashtra and senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan.
Political commentator Abhay Deshpande told ThePrint that the home department has always been in focus in Maharashtra, but it has been in the news more in the last two years because of the political situation.
When this government was formed, the opposition was behaving like a ‘waiting government’, he said. In the last two years, they (BJP) have realized that they will have to make efforts to oust the government,” Deshpande said. “Central agencies are very active in Maharashtra. So, the MVA is also using the opportunity to play the victim card and hit back with the state home department. But, in the end, these are just attacks and counterattacks to win in a game of perception. ,
Read also: From extortion to corruption, this is the case against Mumbai’s former top cop Parambir Singh
‘Bad publicity for government, Maharashtra’
A senior Congress functionary who spoke to ThePrint, requesting anonymity, said, “While there were many controversies over law and order, there were three cases in particular where central agencies were also involved and which dominated the discourse. She was These incidents created a lot of bad publicity not only for the state government, but for Maharashtra in general. ,
The Congress leader listed the three controversies as follows:
• Actor Rajput Death and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) action against alleged drug abuse in the film industry
• Involvement of former Mumbai Police sharpshooter Sachin Waje in Antilia explosives case and National Investigation Agency (NIA) Arrested Now the sacked cop reaches out to former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh allegations Allegations of running an extortion racket against the then Home Minister Anil Deshmukh
• And finally, the NCB raids on an alleged rave party on a Goa-bound cruise ship in which actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan and slugfest This was followed by a tussle between NCP minister Nawab Malik and NCB.
“The choice of personnel within the home department, especially the Mumbai Police Commissioner (Param Bir Singh) was not the best available option. But he was chosen for political reasons and clearly did not work,” the Congress leader said.
Sources in the MVA said that CM Uddhav Thackeray was not in favor of appointing Singh as the Mumbai Police Commissioner, but the NCP argued that it has to pick the person for the coveted post as the home department is with the party. Singh as the head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) clean chit NCP minister Ajit Pawar in irrigation scam
“CM stays away from controversies. He should have shaken hands through the events. But this is not his style. He publicly stayed out of it and let someone else criticize him. Amidst all this, the NCP drew a lot of criticism. An NCP leader said.
What made the CM’s silence on the controversy even worse is that Vaze had links with the Shiv Sena. He formally joined the party in 2008 after resigning from the Mumbai Police Force (his resignation was not accepted). Thackeray also publicly defended Vaze said “he is not Osama” for being targeted by the BJP in the Antilia explosives case, although the Shiv Sena later far away Dismissed himself from the police now.
Deshmukh eventually resigned in April after the Bombay High Court ordered the CBI to launch a preliminary inquiry into the allegations leveled by Singh against the NCP leader.
“This is not Uddhava sir’s A lot of talking style. Even when they were dealing with the pandemic, the central leaders were constantly criticizing the state government, but Uddhav sir took control. So, it is not as if he did not speak only in the Waze controversy,” Shiv Sena leader Bhaskar Jadhav told ThePrint.
“BJP, meanwhile, is doing whatever it can to oust the MVA government, sometimes supporting Param Bir Singh, sometimes Sushant Singh Rajput. It is making full use of central agencies and forcing the state government to respond in the same language,” he said.
political battle
events like railpel At Bandra Terminus in the midst of the first wave of the Kovid-19 pandemic and Palghar Lynching The April 2020 incident gave the BJP an opportunity to criticize the MVA over the law and order situation in its first few months. However, the real centre-vs-state scuffle first began over the investigation into Rajput’s death.
The BJP insisted on a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), alleging that his death was probably a murder. Some BJP leaders also pointed fingers at the possible involvement of state cabinet minister and CM’s son Aaditya Thackeray, while MVA alleged That the BJP is using the probe as an instrument to destabilize the three-party government.
Amid the uproar, the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA Has taken back State’s consensus to CBI to investigate cases in Maharashtra without the permission of the government.
The dust of the political controversy surrounding Rajput’s death was yet to settle, but the state home department sparked a new controversy in October last year when the Mumbai Police announced it. Investigation The alleged misappropriation of television rating points includes republic tv Founder Arnab Goswami.
In the same month, Mumbai Police filed Another case against senior editors and newsroom staff republic tv for allegedly “attempting to provoke discontent” among members of the police force.
In November, Maharashtra Police Arrested Goswami for his alleged involvement in the 2018 suicide of Mumbai-based interior designer Anvay Naik. B J P Slammed several cases against republic tv And Goswami calls the MVA a government with an Emergency-era mindset to “crush any voice of dissent”.
Some Congress leaders also informally accepted told ThePrint that the action against Goswami smacks of political vendetta.
“After all, the parties in this government have different ideologies. The style of Congress is very Gandhian. They do not like to be attacked openly, take things to the head. Also, there is always the fear of inviting the wrath of central agencies, so many leaders in the MVA have preferred to be low-key on these issues,” a Shiv Sena leader told ThePrint.
Read also: Promotion of Tawde, nomination of Bawankule, BJP’s plan to keep the old leader of Maharashtra happy
attack and counterattack
In the last two years, the ED has summoned or raided properties belonging to several MVA leaders such as Shiv Sena’s Arjun Khotkar, Bhavna Gawli, Pratap Sarnaik, Anandrao Adsul, Anil Parab, NCP’s Eknath Khadse, Anil Deshmukh and Ajit Pawar.
NCP President Sharad Pawar in September this year told reporters That the Center is using ED as its tool to suppress the opponents. For this, BJP’s own leader Harshvardhan Patil, who broke away from the Congress in 2019, said He had been “sleeping well” ever since he joined the BJP.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Police filed Based on complaints filed by Shiv Sena members, at least 10 FIRs were registered on social media against the critics of the MVA government, Chief Minister Thackeray and his son Aaditya Thackeray, in the name of 50 accused. The BJP criticized the action, saying the government was “misusing its power to silence the critics”.
In March this year, when the MVA government was under criticism for alleged lapses in the Mumbai Police’s investigation in the Antilia case, the state government set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the death of Dadra and Nagar Haveli MP Mohan. was formed. Delkar after Congress (he died in Mumbai) demanded The involvement of BJP in the matter is being probed.
Around the same time, Leader of the Opposition Devendra Fadnavis targeted The MVA on the assembly floor with sensitive call data records on the Antilia case, and later leaked a “confidential report” by IPS officer Rashmi Shukla about corruption in police transfers and postings, which Fadnavis claimed was ignored by the MVA government. decided to do.
In August this year, Maharashtra Police arrested Union Minister Narayan Rane for his remarks slapping CM Thackeray, prompting many within the MVA to tell the incident that it was the Shiv Sena’s political agenda. History Enmity with Thackeray family
Latest political tug of war The violence between the BJP and the MVA took place in Amaravati earlier this month, when Islamic outfit Raza Academy called for a protest against the alleged vandalism of a mosque in Tripura. After this there is a one-day bandh of BJP. Both protests resulted in violence.
“The three parties have come together to form the government, not because they love each other very much, but because it is the need of every party. What the BJP does not understand is that the more it targets our leaders using central agencies, the more the three parties stick together.
Political analyst Deshpande said that after two years, the BJP is finally transitioning from “waiting government to opposition”.
“MVA allies will be on hand as long as the BJP continues to walk on their feet,” he said.
He said that this is the biggest achievement at the end of two years.
(Edited by Arun Prashant)
Read also: BJP to go booth to booth in Maharashtra, expose how Uddhav government is ‘harming’ agencies
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