#dnaEdit: Eknath Khadse’s fall

In resigning from the Maharashtra cabinet, Eknath Khadse has done the honourable thing. Now the onus is on the state government to probe the allegations against Khadse and indict or exonerate him, based on the findings. Over the past few weeks, Khadse, once a chief ministerial aspirant, and then the de-facto No.2 in the Maharashtra government, has witnessed a precipitous fall in his fortunes. An ethical hacker who accessed Pakistani telecom servers alleged that Khadse’s phone number figured multiple times in the call detail records of gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s wife. Khadse claimed that he was not using that number. Then an aide, Gajanan Patel, was arrested for allegedly demanding a Rs30 crore bribe to transfer ownership of a plot of land in Thane. The last straw was the revelation that Khadse’s wife and son-in-law had purchased a three-acre plot near Pune for Rs3.75 crore when the market rate was nearly Rs31 crore. Soon the industries ministry questioned this land deal claiming that the plot was acquired by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation. Along the way, a number of other acts by Khadse as revenue minister revealed his overt interest in that land deal. 

The charges against Khadse are very serious and there was no way the central leadership could have overlooked the allegations, unlike those made against Sushma Swaraj or Vasundhara Raje. It involved corruption, impropriety, conflict of interest, and connections with an underworld figure. The BJP had stormed to power in Maharashtra after the Congress-NCP combine found itself enmeshed in a string of corruption scandals. Alongside economic growth and creating jobs, a tough stance on anti-corruption continues to be among Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s primary slogans. It was easier for the Prime Minister to support Swaraj and Raje because the charges against them were relatively minor and were restricted to conflict of interest and impropriety. There was no evidence that they had benefitted from their alleged links to Lalit Modi. But in Khadse’s case, the link between his revenue ministry and the shady land deals of his inner circle was too blatant to be condoned. By forcing Khadse to quit promptly, the BJP can also blunt the attacks it has faced from ally, Shiv Sena, and the opposition parties.

Khadse’s exit was also necessary because of the crucial portfolios he held. The state is in the grip of drought conditions and an embattled agriculture minister can hardly be expected to provide a reprieve to farmers or the rural populace. Khadse turned this argument on its head on Twitter by appealing to the media to allow him to focus on farmers’ issues “as a responsible agriculture minister”, instead of clarifying “baseless” allegations. A central delegation was in Maharashtra to study the drought situation but Khadse was firefighting to save his career. However, Khadse appears to have realised that eliminating conflict of interest required him to leave public office first before facing a governmental inquiry. As leader of the opposition in the previous assembly, this was what Khadse would demand from tainted ministers in the Congress-NCP government. Nevertheless, Khadse’s exit will have its impact on the Maharashtra BJP. After Gopinath Munde’s death, Khadse had assumed the mantle of BJP’s OBC face in Maharashtra and was unhappy that Fadnavis, the younger of the two, was preferred over him for chief ministership. Fadnavis subsequently mollified him by granting him 10 portfolios. With a considerable following in Northern Maharashtra, it will be difficult for the BJP to sideline Khadse for long. His political repatriation could be quick. But Khadse’s fall is a dire reminder to politicians of the moral responsibility bestowed on those holding executive office.