Maharashtra Oppn to disrupt monsoon session

The Congress-NCP on Wednesday stepped up its pressure on the Devendra Fadnavis government saying that they would not allow proceedings during the monsoon session till Pankaja Munde and Vinod Tawde are removed from the Cabinet.

The BJP appeared to be selective in defending the ministers whose names have surfaced in scams. A day after Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar and Co-operation and Marketing Minister stood by Education Minister Tawde and stood with him when he refuted charges of a Rs 191-crore irregularities in procurement of fire-extinguishers for zilla parishad schools, there was no such thing for Munde, who is embroiled in a Rs 206-crore scam.

At her news conference, Housing Minister Prakash Mehta walked in at the fag end. Only her sister and Beed MP Pritam Munde and Rashtriya Samaj Paksha leader Mahadev Jankar were present.

Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil said they were serious about the demand of resignations of the two ministers. “They have to resign, we would not allow the House to run,” Vikhe-Patil said.

When asked whether the Congress and NCP were together on this issue and why his counterpart in the Council Dhananjay Munde was not speaking up on the scams, Patil said, “I am speaking for the entire Opposition.”

Asked why he is not demanding the resignation of the chief minister, he said: “I had already demanded that when he did not bother even to visit the people affected by the Malvani hooch tragedy. He is busy giving clean chits to everyone.” 

Meanwhile, Munde denied that there was any scam involved in the procurement. When asked why senior ministers were not present with her as in the case of Tawde, she said, “The chief minister and my party ministers are behind me and I have support of lakhs and crores of people.”