MVA government gave ‘supari’ to officials to put me in jail: Devendra Fadnavis

NAGPUR: Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday alleged that certain officials were given a contract to frame him and other senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in the state in false cases when the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was in power.

“During the MVA government, a 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 said during a media interaction.

Fadnavis was responding to a query about former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh’s recent allegations that former state home minister Anil Deshmukh pressured him to file false cases against certain BJP leaders.

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“What [Singh] said about efforts being made to arrest me and other BJP leaders is completely true. He mentioned one incident, but there are actually four incidents where conspiracies were plotted to arrest me on false charges. However, we managed to expose those conspiracies at the time. We also provided video evidence to the CBI, and we still have substantial video evidence today,” Fadnavis said.

Fadnavis has been locked in a war of words with Deshmukh ever since the latter claimed on July 21 that he had been approached by a mediator on behalf of the BJP leader to sign four affidavits impleading Uddhav Thackeray, Aaditya Thackeray, Ajit Pawar and Anil Parab in various cases.

Singh had accused Deshmukh in 2021 of asking former Mumbai police officer Sachin Vaze to collect ₹100 crore a month from bars and restaurants. The allegations were levelled while the NIA was investigating the Antilia bomb threat case, in which Vaze was the main accused. Deshmukh was forced to resign as state home minister after the Bombay high court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct an inquiry into the corruption allegations.

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Earlier this week, the NCP (SP) leader claimed that Fadnavis had tried to save Singh from arrest by asking him to level allegations against Deshmukh to topple the MVA government. Both Fadnavis and Singh dismissed the allegations.