Uddhav loyalists seek inquiry after wrong names in disqualified candidates' list

Members of Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction on Monday demanded an inquiry after the names of three daughters and a son of rebel legislator Abdul Sattar appeared in the list of the 7,880 candidates who were disqualified and banned in connection with the alleged rigging of the Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) 2019-20.

Sattar has alleged a political conspiracy and questioned the timing of the list when the much-awaited expansion of the Maharashtra cabinet is around the corner. Taking a dig, senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan said Sattar could perhaps be made the state's education minister. Shiv Sena MLC Ambadas Danve has demanded an inquiry to check the role of Sattar in the TET case.

"The then Chief Minister Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar had resigned from his post when a matter on similar lines came to light. But now people like Sattar are lobbying for big portfolios. Maharashtra Chief Minister (Eknath Shinde) is encouraging people like Sattar," Danve alleged. "This is a serious issue and the role of Abdul Sattar should be checked in the TET scam," he told PTI in Aurangabad.

Chandrakant Khaire, a former Aurangabad MP and the Thackeray loyalist said if Sattar is not guilty then he should remain silent. "Sattar is our old friend. The government should conduct an inquiry into this case and dig out the truth" he told reporters. Prithviraj Chavan said Sattar could perhaps be made the education minister in the new cabinet.

"When there is such instability in the government, no one has time to take cognisance of such scams. Other issues are kept on the back burner and the focus is on who is going to be a minister and what portfolio he will get,” Chavan told reporters as he slammed the Shinde-Fadnavis government. The former chief minister said the tradition of good administration is coming to end in Maharashtra.

The Pune city unit of the Nationalist Congress Party staged a protest and sarcastically demanded that Sattar be made the education minister. The Maharashtra State Council of Examinations (MSCE) last Wednesday said it had disqualified 7,880 candidates for their involvement in the manipulation and tampering of marks in the TET 2019.

While 7,500 of the 7,880 candidates allegedly tampered with the results in the exchange for money to show themselves "eligible" in the results of the final exam, 293 candidates secured forged/fake certificates projecting themselves as eligible candidates after the final results.