With Maharashtra minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Devendra Fadnavis engaged in a war of words, state Congress chief Nana Patole termed the political situation as terrible.
Patole said the allegations made by the political leaders against each other is bringing shame to Maharashtra.
The Maharashtra Congress president appealed to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to probe allegations made by Fadnavis and Malik.
Notably, Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress are in alliance in Maharashtra.
Patole’s remarks came after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Fadnavis accused the NCP Minister of an alleged deal with two close aides of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar involving a prime plot of land in Kurla.
Following the Fadnavis’ salvo, Malik accused Fadnavis of sweeping under the carpet a case of seized fake notes and rewarding persons with shady credentials with plum government panel postings.
Fadnavis hit back by posting a cryptic tweet, quoting George Bernard Shaw, that read: “I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides the pig likes it!”
Both the NCP and BJP leaders have been aiming at each other with charges of underworld links. Nawab Malik had tried to link the saffron party with an alleged narcotics dealer by tweeting the latter’s photograph with the Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly and his wife Amruta Fadnavis.
Meanwhile, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) zonal director Sameer Wankhede’s wife Kranti Redkar and father Dnyandev Wankhede on November 9 met Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and submitted a complaint against Malik.
Malik had levelled several allegations against Sameer Wankhede following the NCB’s alleged drug bust on a cruise ship during which actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan was arrested.
The Maharashtra minister has accused Wankhede of forging his caste certificate to get a government job and also running an extortion racket by falsely implicating people in drug cases. The Maharashtra minority development minister has also accused the NCB officer of concealing that he was born into a Muslim family.
