MVA gave contract to frame, jail me in false cases, says Fadnavis

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday alleged that during the erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, a "contract" was given to some officials to frame him and other BJP leaders in false cases and put them behind bars. Speaking to reporters in Nagpur, he said the Uddhav Thackeray-led dispensation failed to put him and other BJP leaders in jail as many good officials refused to lodge false cases against them.

Fadnavis was responding to a query about former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh's allegation that former home minister Anil Deshmukh pressured him to file false cases against certain BJP leaders. "What he (Singh) said about efforts being made to arrest me and other BJP leaders is completely true.

He only talked about one incident, but there are four such incidents wherein conspiracies were hatched to arrest me in false cases," he said. "However, we were able to expose those conspiracies at that time. We also gave video evidence of those to the CBI and we have a lot of video evidence today also," Fadnavis said.

"During the MVA government, 'supari' (contract) was given to certain officials to put me, Girish Mahajan, Pravin Darekar and several other leaders in jail. But, they could not do it, because there were many good officials at that time who refused to lodge such false cases," the former chief minister claimed.

Of late, Fadnavis has been locked in a war of words with Anil Deshmukh, since the latter accused the BJP politician of trying to exert pressure as the then opposition leader when he (Deshmukh) was home minister in the erstwhile MVA government, to frame key politicians including the then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.

Deshmukh resigned as home minister in 2021 after Param Bir Singh accused him of setting a target to collect Rs 100 crore a month from bars and restaurants in the city. Earlier this week, Deshmukh claimed that Fadnavis had tried to save Param Bir Singh from arrest by asking him to level allegations against Deshmukh to topple the MVA government. Both Fadnavis and Singh dismissed the allegations made by the senior NCP (SP) leader.