DISCONTENT IN MAHARASHTRA BJP OVER MLC ELECTIONS

off Rs 6 crore from Mumbai Bank. He is also accused of forging papers for the registration of a credit society. In the past, BJP leaders such as Kirit Somaiyya and Vinod Tawde have written to the government seeking action against him,” Vivekanand Gupta alleged.

When contacted, this newspaper was told that Kirit So- maiyya did not wish to speak on the matter currently. Darekar has denied all allegations and has said that the FIR against him had been quashed, but Gupta called the claim concocted and misleading. When asked, Darekar told this newspaper, “I do not wish to say anything about these allegations. We are in the process of filing a defamation suit against Vivekanand Gupta.”

Gupta, however, is keeping up his attack on the duo. “Look at R.N. Singh. He is 72 years old and mired in corruption charges. Generally, only respected people are nominated to the Upper House. They are people of eminent stature, academicians or persons who excel in their work. But with these nominations of corrupt people, the stature of the election itself has been lowered,” he said.

Leaders close to both Darekar and R. N. Singh denied all allegations and claimed that these were politically motivated.

BJP members said that the party will have to take note of the discontent. “The party will have to hold a meeting and address this unrest. The next step completely depends on the party,” a senior BJP leader said. It is being claimed that both these candidates were given nominations at the behest of Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar, who has next year’s Mumbai Municipal Corporation elections in mind.

Meanwhile, after two candidates, Prasad Lad and Manoj Kotak withdrew their nominations towards the end of the week, the way was paved for the unopposed elections for 10 seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council. Accordingly, Congress’ Narayan Rane, NCP’s Dhananjay Munde and Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar, Shiv Sena’s Subhash Desai and Diwakar Raote, BJP’s Sujitsingh Thakur, R.N. Singh and Praveen Darekar, and Sadabhau Khot and Vinayak Mete were elected unopposed. The formal announcement for the same is likely to be made on 12 June.

Party functionaries are confident that BJP president Amit Shah will take necessary action to ensure that the good name of the party in Maharashtra is maintained. The state leaders spoken to were unanimous in their confidence that Prime Minister Modi wanted a corruption free party. They expect strong action in the Maharashtra matter from the top leadership of the BJP.