On Saturday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi government had planned a "calculated move" to make false charges against Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and imprison him as well.
In the case of alleged phone tapping, which took place during the term of the MVA government, Shinde replied to a reporter's question at the Mumbai court, which accepted the closure report of the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The incident took place in March 2021 when BJP leader Fadnavis was the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly. Shinde reportedly said, "The then MVA government had misused power and wanted to jail leaders of the BJP by levelling different charges on them. A calculative move was on by the then government to level charges against (Independent MP) Navneet Rana, (BJP MP) Narayan Rane etc. and jail them. The same was planned by them (MVA) for Fadnavis also."
Shinde further said that things have cleared now and people of the state know who is on which side of the truth.
In addition, Shinde claimed that whatever Ajit Pawar, who is part of the current BJP-Shiv Sena government, agrees to, NCP chief Sharad Pawar will soon agree.
The chief minister's reply came on a query on Sharad Pawar's statement a day before wherein he said there was no split in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar is its leader. Pawar later denied making such a statement.
"Sharad Pawar is an old leader. Ajit Pawar agreed with the work of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As he wanted to be a part of this work, he joined hands with the state government (of BJP-Shiv Sena). Whatever Ajit Pawar agrees to, Sharad Pawar will also agree soon," Shinde reportedly said.
He said the historic landing of Chandrayaan 3 on the lunar surface is one of the examples of the progress made by the country under the leadership of PM Modi.
Shinde also made light of the upcoming meeting of the INDIA bloc in Mumbai saying that the coming together of opposition parties indicates that PM Modi will be successful again (in elections).
"Opposition leaders came together in 2014 and 2019 also but that strategy did not work. On the other hand, the strength of the BJP increased. The situation won't be different in 2024 also," he added.
The tripartite MVA government of Shiv Sena (Undivided), NCP, and Congress was in power from November 2019 to June 30, 2022. It collapsed after Shinde, then a minister, rebelled along with a bulk of MLAs of Shiv Sena against the leadership of then CM Uddhav Thackeray.
