Mumbai, Mar. (Samajweekly) Hours after an alleged corruption in police transfers-promotions broke out, the Nationalist Congress Party on Tuesday accused two top IPS officers — former state Director-General of Police Subodh Jaiswal and ex-State Intelligence Department Commissioner Rashmi Shukla — as “BJP agents” working against the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
“It’s now proved that (Jaiswal-Shukla) were working the Bharatiya Janata Party and against the MVA government. After unsuccessful attempts for 15 months to destabilise the MVA, the BJP is now resorting to pressuring officers,” NCP Minister and National Spokesperson Nawab Malik said.
Last year, Jaiswal was posted as DG-CISF and Shukla Addl.DG-CRPF, at the Centre.
The NCP Minister for Minority Affairs categorically said that the SID chief Shukla had put phones under surveillance “illegally” for which she was transferred, and she was also tapping phones of the top leaders of Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress during the government formation days of the MVA in late 2019.
Slamming the BJP’s Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis, who levelled the allegations and circulated ‘top secret’ documents, Malik pointed out that police transfers are as per the recommendations of the two boards, headed by an Additional CS (Home) and another by the DGP himself, looking after the shifting of senior and junior officials, respectively.
Referring to the strong defence of Shukla by Fadnavis, Malik said: “It’s a crime to tap any phone illegally,” and the SID report in reference, 80 percent of the police officials have not been transferred.
“However, despite being aware of all this as a former CM who had handled the home department, Fadnavis is deliberately misleading the people… He produced police VVIP movement records, and then created confusion by saying he was not aware if these were ‘movements’ or not,” Malik pointed out.
“Having failed to topple the MVA from day one, Fadnavis is now resorting to discredit the government by telling lies after lies…He even misled people that Shiv Sena was pressuring him on reinstating Sachin Vaze, and revealed that he consulted the Advocate-General on this… However, there are no official records on this,” Malik said.
He also attacked former Mumbai Commissioner of Police Param Bir Singh for ‘creating’ records on his own to save himself from possible action in the SUV planting case outside industrialist Mukesh Ambani home and the death of Thane businessman Mansukh Hiran.
Malik wanted to know why Vaze was called by Singh for a long closed-door meeting just prior to his (Vaze’s) arrest and before he (Singh) was transferred from his post.
He pointed out how Singh who was at the forefront of the TRP scam but it is in cold-storage for the past couple of months “and we don’t know what pressure he was facing”.
Referring to the points raised by Singh in his ‘letter-bomb’ Malik asked the IPS officer to explain how – when the suicide of suicide of MP Mohan Delkar took place in Mumbai – can a case be registered in Dadra & Nagar Haveli.
“Singh’s allegations (against Deshmukh) were made to save himself… For three days, Fadnavis is misleading the people with lies… He even tried to create a stir by addressing the Mumbai media today first in Hindi and later in Marathi,” Malik said.
Commenting on the BJP’s desperation to grab power, he said they overthrew governments in Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and in north-eastern states, but they could not break the legislators in Maharashtra for so many months.
“Now, the BJP is trying to malign the MVA government, but as long as we have a majority in the state, and can prove it on the floor of the assembly, nobody can dare to remove us, neither the Governor nor the Centre,” Malik declared.
