The Maharashtra unit of the Congress has found itself isolated as its allies in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government — the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — have not sought its help in fighting allegations of extortion against the State Home Minister and irregularities in transfers of police officers.
According to party sources, even the Chief Minister has not bothered to hold a meeting with senior Congress ministers in his Cabinet. “Balasaheb Thorat and Ashok Chavan went to meet Uddhav Thackeray on their own. This is frustrating for us as we are an important ally in the government,” a senior party leader said.
Congress ministers even held a meeting on Tuesday evening in a bid to show their strength in the present government. “A section of the party believes that the Sena and the NCP should sort out the matter as the Congress has no relation whatsoever to the allegations. Why should we jump into it when we are not even considered an ally by these two parties?” the leader said.
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Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party has ridiculed the Congress for its conspicuous absence in the firefighting. “Where is the Congress? Aren’t they in this government? Why is the party silent and not spoken anything? Are they also a beneficiary of the extortion racket?” asked Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis.
In reply, State Congress chief Nana Patole said that Mr. Fadnavis seemed to know how extortion rackets work from his past experience as chief minister.
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“Mr. Fadnavis while holding the chief minister’s post used police officers like Rashmi Shukla to extort money. Officials affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) also penetrated different government departments and extorted money. We demand a probe into the officers linked to the RSS and the amount of money they extorted over the past five years,” he said.
Mr. Patole added that if he had been in the government he would have suspended an officer like former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh.