NAGPUR: Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Saturday that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) govt had given a ‘supari‘ to cops to implicate him and a few other BJP leaders and put them behind bars. Fadnavis was responding to former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh‘s statement that MVA conspired to frame top BJP leaders and arrest them.
“During MVA’s tenure, a ‘supari’ was given to police officers to imprison me, Girish Mahajan, Pravin Darekar and a few others. Some officers accepted the ‘supari’ but were unable to execute the plan as there were other good officers who refused to comply with their master’s diktat,” he said.
For two weeks, Fadnavis and NCP (SP) leader Anil Deshmukh have been involved in a war of words. It all began with Deshmukh alleging that Fadnavis, as leader of opposition in 2021, pressured him to frame MVA ministers or face prison, courtesy action by Central investigative agencies.
Fadnavis’ supporters retaliated by saying Deshmukh was leading an extortion racket as the state’s home minister, which was put on record through complaints filed by IPS officer Param Bir Singh and his junior Sachin Waze.
The latest entrant into this controversy was Singh himself, who alleged that the MVA govt had planned to jail Fadnavis. Reacting to Singh’s statement, Fadnavis said, “Whatever he (Param Bir) said regarding MVA’s plan to arrest me and other BJP politicians is true. Singh cited one incident, but there are at least four such incidents in which a conspiracy was hatched to arrest me through false cases. But the plot was exposed by us and the evidence submitted to CBI. Even today, I have multiple video evidence related to this issue.”