Attacking the Congress-NCP-led state government and speaker Dilip Valse Patil for refusing to sanction the prosecution of former Congress minister Kripashanker Singh in a disproportionate assets case, Shiv Sena alleged this seemed to be a trade-off in exchange for saving deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and former water resources minister Sunil Tatkare in the irrigation scam.
"Kripashanker is being protected politically and legally and as if he is a Mahatma," said an editorial on Monday in the Sena organ Saamna, adding that the denial of prosecution by the speaker reflected the "culture of Congress or NCP". It alleged that the state government had also taken a stand which benefitted Kripashanker in court.
The newspaper has Sena president Uddhav Thackeray as the editor and Rajya Sabha MP and spokesperson Sanjay Raut as the executive editor. It alleged that Valse Patil's decision on the eve of assembly polls amounted to the "murder of Satyameva Jayate". The editorial also charged that chief minister Prithviraj Chavan was trying to prevent Kripashanker from being arrested.
In December 2012, a special investigation team headed by former Mumbai police commissioner Satyapal Singh, who is now a BJP MP from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh, had probed the allegations against Kripashanker, an MLA from Kalina in Mumbai, and had sought sanction to prosecute him.
"If a trial was conducted against Kripashanker, the truth would have come out, but the Maharashtra government turned tail because of Sonia Gandhi and Robert Vadra, and saved Kripashanker. This is corruption, this is dishonesty. Even now, the government indulged in dishonesty on its way out by refusing to sanction his prosecution before the assembly elections," the editorial said, attributing the defeat of Congress and NCP in the Lok Sabha polls to such acts.
"It seems there is a clear trade-off, if you want to save Ajit Pawar, Tatkare in the irrigation scam, you will also have to save our favourite Kripashanker," Sena said.
It added that another set of laws was applied to other legislators, like Sena MLA from Jalgaon Sureshdada Jain, who is in jail for three years pending a trial, and legislator from Acchalpur in Amravati Bacchu Kadu, against whom a case was lodged without the speaker's consent.
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