Mumbai: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sudhir Mungantiwar has created a flutter by warning that the Maharashtra government could be dismissed for intransigence if it fails to cooperate with the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on the Bhima Koregaon case.
The Centre’s decision to transfer the Bhima Koregaon case to the NIA has not gone down well with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA). Home minister Amit Deshmukh has said that the state government has not received any communication for the transfer of the case to the NIA.
The Pune police has reportedly denied access to documents relating to the case to the NIA, saying that they did not get any instructions from the state police chief’s office.
Speaking on this, Mr Mungantiwar said that the NIA had been formed during the Congress regime for inter-state affairs.
“If any state is encouraging destructive activities, the law will take its own course,” he said.
“If the state government is acting against the Centre’s decision, there could be a constitutional logjam. The governor will have to look into this issue. We all know that during the tenure of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, state governments were dissolved as many as 97 times. When the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government came to power, the law was amended to ensure that state governments were not easily dismissed easily. Even so, our existing law says that if states are acting against constitutional provisions, the Centre can intervene,” said Mr Mungantiwar.
Congress leader and PWD minister Ashok Chavan slammed Mr Mungantiwar’s comments, stating that there was no reason for the Centre to hand over the case to the NIA in the first place.
“They needed to take the consent of the state government while handing over the case to the central agency. It is interference by the Centre in state affairs,” he alleged.
NCP minister Nawab Malik dared the Centre to dissolve the MVA government in the state.
The NIA took over the Bhima Koregaon case Friday in which several activists were booked for making provocative speeches at the Elgaar Parishad event organised at Shaniwar Wada in Pune on 31 December 2017, which then allegedly escalated tensions leading to riots in Pune and Mumbai.
The activists were arrested and booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Following the information that the NIA has taken over the case, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh called a meeting of police officials involved in the investigation of the case along with the DGP to understand the extent of the probe.
