Who is Dilip Walse Patil, Maharashtra’s New Home Minister?

Hours after NCP leader Anil Deshmukh resigned from the post of Maharashtra home minister, another NCP leader Dilip Walse Patil, took charge of the ministry on Monday. Prior to this, Patil was holding the Labour and Excise portfolios.

However, after Patil was named as the home minister, the labour portfolio was assigned to rural development minister Hassan Mushrif while deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar will look after the Excise department, the CMO said in a statement.

NCP leader Anil Deshmukh stepped down as Maharashtra Home Minister after the Bombay High Court ordered a CBI probe into the corruption allegations against him. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray subsequently forwarded his resignation to the Governor.

A team of CBI officers will be reaching Mumbai today to investigate the corruption allegations of Param Bir Singh against Deshmukh. 

“CBI inquiry shall be completed in 15 days, then CBI Director can decide the further course of action in accordance with law’, ordered a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni. The bench said that this was an “extraordinary” and “unprecedented” case that warranted an independent inquiry.

WHO IS DILIP WALSE PATIL?

• Dilip Walse-Patil is an NCP MLA from Ambegaon, Maharashtra
• He is a six-time Member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from Nationalist Congress Party.
• He is currently serving as Minister of Excise and Labour Department in the Government of Maharashtra.
• Walse-Patil is known to be a close associate of NCP chief Sharad Pawar.
• Patil formerly headed the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Energy Ministry, Higher and Technical Education Ministry, and Medical Education Ministry, all as a Cabinet Minister from 1999 to 2009.
• He is currently serving as the President of National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Limited (NFCSF).