The Maharashtra Congress and ally Sharad Pawar's faction of Nationalist Congress Party have been hit by corruption allegations on the eve of the crucial state elections. A retired police officer, Ravindranath Patil, has accused Mr Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule and state Congress chief Nana Patole of being involved in a fraud case involving cryptocurrency that dates back to 2018. The funds, he alleged, have been used for campaigning in the assembly election. Supriya Sule has denied any wrongdoing and called it the "familiar tactics of spreading false information to manipulate the righteous voters" the night before election.
The BJP was quick to take note of the allegations and presented the media with audio clips it claimed were evidence of involvement of Nana Patole and Supriya Sule in what it dubbed the "bitcoin scam".
BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi claimed the development has "unmasked" the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi and demanded replies from the Congress and Ms Sule, who is a member of the Lok Sabha from Baramati.
"I am amused that elections have come down to such a level," Supriya Sule told NDTV.
"Sudhanshu Trivedi made five allegations and asked me five questions and they (the allegations) are all false. I am happy to sit with him in any public forum -- place time and forum of his choice. It is all false and I have lodged a cybercrime complaint. I have nothing to do with any transfer of bitcoin... this shows the BJP's desperation," she added.
She underscored her response with a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter:
Mr Patil, who had taken voluntary retirement from the Indian Police Service, was roped in by the Pune police along with cyber expert Pankaj Ghode to investigate a couple of cryptocurrency cases registered in 2018.
The police had alleged that Mr Patil, in course of the investigation, transferred some cryptocurrencies into his account. Ghode had provided screenshots of the accounts to police by changing the numbers -- that showed lesser amount in crypto wallets.
Mr Patil had told reporters that he was framed which he and his colleagues have investigated, reported news agency IANS.
He claimed a key witness in the case, Gaurav Mehta-an employee of an audit firm-had told him about the 2018 cryptocurrency fraud investigation.
Mehta has alleged that during the arrest of Amit Bhardwaj, a cryptocurrency trader, a hardware wallet containing Bitcoin was seized. But the wallet was replaced by another one -- allegedly under the direction of Amitabh Gupta, the then-Pune Police Commissioner.
Mehta has claimed that the real culprits were Gupta and his team and Patil and his colleagues were arrested unjustly, It was also he who had given him the information about Nana Patole and Supriya Sule, he said.
Patil told IANS that Mehta sent several voice recordings on 'Signal' -- social media app -- including messages from Supriya Sule requesting cash in exchange for Bitcoin. In the recordings, Sule allegedly assured Mehta that there was no need to worry about the investigation, as they would handle it once they came to power.
Another recording reportedly featured Nana Patole, inquiring about the delay in the cash transaction. Though the audio messages are available with IANS, the agency does not vouch for the veracity of the clips.
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