Nashik: Supporters of incarcerated former deputy chief minister and sitting MLA Chhagan Bhujbal will be staging massive demonstrations across the country on January 2, 2018, against his custody. A meeting of Bhujbal’s supporters, including the Samata Parishad, was held in Nashik on Sunday, in which they decided to hold demonstrations at every tehsil and district in India.
The demonstrations will be held at 11 am. Senior leader Balasaheb Kardak said that the demonstrators would be wearing black clothes to mark their protest. He claimed that Chhagan Bhujbal and his nephew and former MP Samir Bhujbal had been taken into custody by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case but “so far no charges have been proven against them”. He added, “But the government agencies have kept them in custody since the last 22 months under the flimsy reason of interrogation.”
He also said that Bhujbal was kept in custody despite his full cooperation with the court and agencies. “Several political leaders, industrialists and businessmen, against whom the action was taken by ED and CBI, have received bail,” he added.
“The Supreme Court has recently ruled that section 45 of the money laundering act was unconstitutional. As this section has been struck down, the accused has full right to seek bail, and the court cannot deny it. This is a nefarious design by the government to stifle the voice of Other Backward Castes and other deprived sections,” he claimed.
The Samta Parishad was holding meetings and garnering support throughout Maharashtra. It is preparing a strategy to seek the release of MLA Chhagan Bhujbal, and also to demand a separate census of OBC communities since last one year. The meetings were held to unite the OBC community, according to Samta Parishad executive president Krishnakant Kudale.
