This Article is From Nov 25, 2019

Devendra Fadnavis's Old Tweets Against NCP Resurface After Maharashtra Shocker

Old tweets of Devendra Fadnavis surfaced online as reminders of his sharp criticism of the NCP.

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India News Edited by

Earlier tweets by Devendra Fadnavis had theme - corruption of then Congress-NCP government.

New Delhi:

Devendra Fadnavis's second term as Maharashtra Chief Minister was enabled by a man he has repeatedly accused of corruption - Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)'s Ajit Pawar, the nephew of party chief Sharad Pawar. Ajit Pawar is now his deputy.

Weeks before the Maharashtra election, both Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar had been named by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case involving the alleged embezzlement of Rs. 25,000 crore from the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank.

Old tweets and videos of Devendra Fadnavis surfaced online as reminders of his sharp criticism of the NCP.

In a video of a speech during the Maharashtra election campaign, Mr Fadnavis is heard saying that Ajit Pawar will go to jail after the polls and would be "chakki peesing and peesing and peesing (doing prison labour)", quoting from iconic Hindi film "Sholay".

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A tweet in 2014 also emerged in which Mr Fadnavis had vowed that his party would "never" join hands with the NCP.

"The BJP will never, never, never have any alliance with NCP. Rumours are motivated. We exposed their corruption in assembly. Others were silent," Mr Fadnavis had tweeted on September 26, 2014, denying taking support from the NCP to form government.

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His earlier tweets had a common theme - the corruption of the then Congress-NCP government.

In 2014, soon after taking charge as chief minister for the first time, Devendra Fadnavis had sanctioned an investigation against Ajit Pawar by the state anti-corruption bureau in connection with irregularities in various irrigation projects.

When the Enforcement Directorate, a central probe agency, charged him with money-laundering just before last month's polls, Ajit Pawar had quit as MLA saying he was "upset that Sharad Pawar (his uncle) had been defamed at his age because of me."

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His resignation had surprised many at the time, but he said he had "resigned without asking" as Sharad Pawar had been dragged into the alleged bank scam. "Everyone is shocked to hear about my resignation. The senior leaders would never have allowed me to resign. I apologise for hurting feeling of my colleagues and workers. I also thought if it was right to put my party in this position ahead of the assembly elections," Ajit Pawar had said.

Ajit Pawar did finally deliver a shocker, one that Sharad Pawar says he was unaware of.

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