THE WAR GETS NASTY

MVA VS BJP

- Kiran D. Tare

On March 13, Mumbai Police officers reached the Malabar Hill home of leader of the opposition Devendra Fadnavis to question him on the data leak case that had rocked Maharashtra in 2021. The case pertains to confidential data on the postings of senior police officers, allegedly obtained by the state intelligence department by tapping the phone calls of politicians and power brokers. This is the first inquiry the ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance government has initiated against the BJP leader and former chief minister, and is reportedly retaliation against central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducting raids on ministers of the ruling alliance.

The police reaching Fadnavis’s doorstep was a reaction to a CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) inquiry conducted on Sanjay Pandey, the new Mumbai police commissioner, who just took charge of the coveted post on February 28. In a six-hour interrogation, the CBI sleuths reportedly wanted to know why Pandey asked his predecessor Param Bir Singh to withdraw a letter written to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray in March 2020 complaining that then home minister Anil Deshmukh had asked his men to collect Rs 100 crore from the bars and restaurants in Mumbai.

Embroiling Fadnavis and Pandey in investigations is the next level of the ongoing tussle between the state government and the Centre. With central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducting raids on 10 MVA leaders, the state has decided that retaliation is warranted. Fadnavis now alleges that the government is treating him like an accused whereas he is a whistle-blower in the case. “I didn’t leak any confidential data. Whatever evidence I had I have submitted to the Union home ministry as they are the patrons of the IPS officers,” he says.