Sack Kokate, Munde from state cabinet, demands Maharashtra Congress chief

Mumbai: Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal on Thursday demanded that the Mahayuti government in the state should sack minister Manikrao Kokate, convicted by a court in a cheating case, and his colleague Dhananjay Munde for "corruption".

While a court in Nashik earlier in the day sentenced Kokate, the present Agriculture Minister, to two years in prison, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Munde has been facing allegations of corruption which he has denied.

"Munde crossed all limits under the guise of helping farmers (when he was agriculture minister). Now, the current minister in charge of the same department, Manikrao Kokate, has been sentenced by the Nashik District Court for preparing fake documents. Both should be removed from the ministry," Sapkal told reporters.

The demand for Munde's resignation is being made for a long time, but Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar lack the courage to remove him, he claimed.

He also pointed out that when Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, was sentenced to two years in a "bogus" defamation case, his parliamentary membership was revoked and his official residence was taken away within 24 hours.

"Would Kokate face similarly swift action?" he asked.

The BJP-led alliance government is "looting public funds through corruption", Sapkal said, adding that while farmers were committing suicide for want of fair price for their produce, ministers were indulging in corruption worth crores of rupees.

"This is unworthy of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's Maharashtra," he added.

Both Munde and Kokate belong to Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party, but it is evident that Pawar was shielding corrupt ministers, Sapkal said.

Kokate was on Thursday convicted by a court in a 1995 case where he was charged with submitting fake documents to get flats under a government quota in the Low Income Group category.