Mumbai: Opposition parties across India have often slammed the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a “washing machine”, for inducting leaders who are facing corruption allegations or probes by investigating agencies.
On Tuesday, the Congress repeated that charge as former chief minister Ashok Chavan, facing allegations of corruption with respect to Mumbai’s 31-storey Adarsh Housing Society for war veterans and widows, quit the party and joined the BJP.
“Is the BJP a washing machine?” said Ramesh Chennithala, a member of the Congress Working Committee, at a press conference. “All those dark spots of corruption get cleaned after meeting (PM Narendra) Modi and (Union Home Minister Amit) Shah…”
Even if Chennithala’s retort at Chavan’s defection is discounted as rhetoric, a look at the list of leaders who have defected to the BJP since 2019, or become its alliance partners, show that if the BJP is indeed a “washing machine”, then Maharashtra is perhaps its biggest laundromat.
In the past five years, there have been at least six major leaders who have moved to the BJP in light of corruption allegations against them or family members, and at least seven others have become the party’s allies.
Apart from Chavan, these include fellow former CM Narayan Rane, former state minister Kripashankar Singh and former MLA Harshvardhan Patil.
While these leaders were in the Opposition, the BJP had criticised most of them tooth and nail for the allegations against them. In some cases, the allegations were made by members of the BJP itself.
In several of these cases related to leaders from the undivided Shiv Sena and the NCP, there was majorly one BJP leader at the forefront, making a splash by releasing allegedly incriminating documents on social media and visiting the properties supposedly acquired through ill-gotten wealth. This is former MP Kirit Somaiya.
Speaking to ThePrint, Somaiya said, “Devendra Fadnavis is the leader of Maharashtra in BJP. He has already given statements about this from time to time. No further comments are required.”
Fadnavis has denied the Opposition’s allegations about the BJP using investigation agencies to force defections.
Sanjay Patil, a researcher with the Mumbai University’s politics and civics department, said the imports, despite their questionable backgrounds, “come from a sense of desperation for the BJP”.
At 48 seats, Maharashtra sends the second highest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha after Uttar Pradesh.
“Post the 2014 election and the feud with the undivided Shiv Sena, the BJP’s aspirations across the country, including Maharashtra, started rising,” he added.
“But, in Maharashtra, though aspirations increased, they did not get converted into electoral performance. The formula that they adopted in the northern states did not work in Maharashtra as the political culture of the state is different where the Hindutva agenda is not enough to sail the party through and regional parties occupy a considerable vote share,” he added.
Patil pointed to how the BJP put up a strong performance in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019, but couldn’t replicate the success with the same magnitude in the Maharashtra assembly polls, winning 122 and 105 seats in the 288-member assembly, respectively.
“It is the Maharashtra BJP’s strategic failure that their leaders have not been able to deliver in the state. The party is trying to offset the risks by breaking other parties, whatever the cost,” Patil said.
Also Read: Going, going, gone — another Congress dynasty crumbles as Ashok Chavan resigns from party
‘Adarsh a political accident’
Former CM Ashok Chavan resigned as a Congress MLA Monday and joined the BJP Tuesday.
Much of Chavan’s political career has been under the shadow of the controversy surrounding the Adarsh Housing Society. Chavan had to step down as Maharashtra CM amid allegations he approved additional construction area for the society in exchange for two flats for relatives.
It was also alleged that 40 percent of the flats that were originally meant to be allotted to 1999 Kargil war heroes and war widows were allotted to civilians instead.
In July 2012, the CBI filed a chargesheet accusing Chavan of conspiracy and corruption.
The Maharashtra governor granted the CBI sanction to prosecute Chavan in February 2016, when the Devendra Fadnavis-led government was in power. Chavan, however, challenged it in the Bombay High Court, which quashed the sanction saying the CBI had failed to present fresh material that could be converted into evidence.
The BJP has often used the Adarsh controversy as political ammunition against the Congress in Maharashtra, particularly against Chavan.
Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election, when Narendra Modi was campaigning in the Nanded constituency, he reportedly ridiculed Chavan as the “Congress’ Adarsh candidate” and promised to fast-track all corruption cases in a special court.
A white paper released by Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman this month that sought to list alleged corruption cases under the former United Progressive Alliance government mentioned the Adarsh controversy, noting that the case is at the trial stage.
When Chavan joined the BJP Tuesday, he dismissed the Adarsh scam as a “political accident” that had happened to him.
He said, “The high court gave a ruling in our favour. Some agencies have appealed in the Supreme Court. Adarsh was a political accident. I faced enough of that. I don’t need to worry about it anymore.”
‘BJP, Shiv Sena leaders didn’t instigate case against me’
Kripashankar Singh, a former minister of state in the Congress-NCP government and a prominent north Indian face of the Congress in Mumbai, joined the BJP in 2021.
Singh was embroiled in a case stemming from disproportionate assets allegations, and had faced immense criticism over it from the BJP while it was in the Opposition.
When the speaker in the former Congress-NCP government refused to grant sanction for Singh’s prosecution, the BJP reportedly said the decision was akin to shielding corruption.
A Mumbai sessions court eventually discharged Singh in 2018 for want of sanction to prosecute him.
As Singh joined the BJP, citing his objection to the Congress’ opposition to the abrogation of Article 370, Fadnavis, who was present at the event, said, “Singh’s induction in the BJP is important as he is not leaving one party for another. He is leaving one ideology for another.”
In 2022, the BJP named Singh the head of its north Indian cell in Mumbai.
The BJP has been looking to wrest control of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The BMC was under the undivided Shiv Sena, led by Uddhav Thackeray, for 25 years until March 2022, when the term of its general body expired. Fresh elections are yet to be held.
Speaking to ThePrint, Singh said, “Neither were my clothes soiled, nor did I need a washing machine.”
He said the case against him was instigated or fuelled not by members of the BJP or the Shiv Sena, but by rivals within his party. “Yes, the BJP did criticise me at that time, but that was political rhetoric considering I was in a rival party. Ultimately, the then speaker Dilip Walse Patil, by not giving sanction [to prosecute], did not do me any favour, but gave me justice. It has been many years now. That chapter is closed.”
Singh also said he didn’t join the BJP “as an opportunist”, but did so for ideological reasons. “The only reason for me to join the BJP was Article 370. I didn’t want to be called an opportunist, so, for 20 months, I did not join the party. In September 2019, I resigned, and, in July 2021, I joined the BJP. In those 20 months, I went to people and campaigned for Article 370,” he said.
Also Read: ‘BJP washing machine in action’ — Opposition cries foul citing cases against NCP leaders
‘I have nothing to do with allegations against me’
Narayan Rane, a former Maharashtra CM, started his career with the undivided Shiv Sena, before moving to the Congress and ultimately walking to form his own outfit, which he aligned with the BJP in 2017.
He formally merged it with the BJP in October 2019. He is currently a Rajya Sabha member and minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet. Rane’s term is, however, expiring, and the BJP has not nominated him for a second term.
Rane brought several benefits for the BJP. He hails from Sindhudurg in the Konkan region, which has so far been the BJP’s Achilles heel in Maharashtra. Rane’s Maratha credentials also helped the BJP, and so did his potential to be of nuisance value to the Thackerays and their Shiv Sena, the BJP’s former acrimonious ally.
However, Rane’s entire political journey has been peppered with allegations of criminal wrongdoings against him and his sons. Before joining the BJP, Rane was battling allegations of money laundering from Kirit Somaiya, who had written to the Enforcement Directorate to probe the companies run by the former CM and his family.
After Rane launched his own party and decided to join the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2017, Somaiya told ThePrint, “The original complaint was about a violation of the floor space index (FSI). The Mumbai civic body is looking into it.
“I sent whatever information I had to the investigating agencies concerned. We keep getting several complaints that we look into and send to the respective departments. I haven’t heard about the investigation ever since. It will take its own course with transparency.”
Meanwhile, Rane told ThePrint in an interview in 2017 that he had no inquiry against him. “I have nothing to do with the allegations. The companies that have been spoken about are not mine. There is no ED inquiry against me.”
Husband battling bribery case, discharged in 2023
Chitra Wagh, a vocal leader from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), moved to the BJP ahead of the 2019 assembly polls. She is currently president of the Maharashtra BJP women’s wing. When she joined the BJP, Wagh’s husband was battling a bribery case registered in 2016, when the Fadnavis government was in power and the BJP leader also held the home portfolio.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) had in 2016 arrested Kishore Wagh for his alleged role in accepting a bribe of Rs 4 lakh from the brother of a patient who had died at the state-run Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Parel. Kishore Wagh was associated with the hospital at the time, and the bribe was allegedly sought to release a compensation cheque to the family over medical negligence.
The ACB had ordered an open inquiry against Kishore Wagh and, in 2021, booked him in an alleged disproportionate assets case. The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was in power at the time. The MVA government comprised the undivided Shiv Sena, the undivided NCP and the Congress.
The Bombay High Court discharged Wagh’s husband in the bribery case in April 2023.
Chitra Wagh did not respond to ThePrint’s calls and text messages.
‘I can sleep peacefully’
Harshvardhan Patil, a former MLA from Indapur in Pune district, moved from the Congress to the BJP ahead of the 2019 assembly election.
The state home department, which came under the then CM Devendra Fadnavis, had in 2014 reportedly given its go-ahead to the ACB to probe graft allegations against Patil while he was with the Congress, based on a complaint by then BJP MLA Anil Gote.
The allegation reportedly was that Patil, who was cooperation minister under the former Congress-NCP government, and the board of directors of the Dhule Central Cooperative Bank were involved in the misappropriation of Rs 144 crore. Patil had denied all allegations against him.
Gote eventually left the BJP in 2018 and joined the NCP in 2019. He resigned from the Sharad Pawar-led NCP in August 2023, a month after the party suffered a split.
“I had given my complaint to the state cooperation department, the Anti-Corruption Bureau, but it didn’t reach any conclusion. The party brushed it under the carpet and then ushered in Harshvardhan Patil,” Gote said, speaking to ThePrint.
“Later, when I went to the NCP and the party was in power, even they (the MVA government) didn’t do anything. All parties are eventually the same,” he added.
In 2021, at a time when NCP leader Sharad Pawar was alleging the Modi government’s misuse of central agencies to target political rivals, Patil, while speaking at an event in Maval in Pune district, had a foot-in-mouth moment.
He said, “We also had to go to the BJP. He (indicating a leader from a rival party seated on the stage) asked me why did you go. I said, instead of asking me, ask your leader why I went… I am relaxed. I can sleep peacefully. There are no probes.”
A day later, he reportedly addressed a press conference saying his remarks were misinterpreted.
Patil did not respond to ThePrint’s call and text message.
Also Read: Family, political style, strategy — why Sharad Pawar isn’t attacking rebels, unlike ally Thackeray
Chhatrapati Shivaji’s descendant
Udayanraje Bhosale, a descendant of Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji, joined the BJP from the NCP in 2019.
He had a case of alleged extortion against him and was also arrested in 2017. He turned up apparently drunk at a press conference, and thereafter criticised his own party (the NCP) in 2009, and posed with the service revolver belonging to a police inspector who had been part of his security detail in 2014. In the late 1990s, he spent time behind bars for a murder case in which he was later acquitted.
The BJP, however, had never directly criticised him even when he was with the NCP, considering he is a descendent of Chhatrapati Shivaji.
Bhosale did not respond to ThePrint’s calls and text messages.
Old probes, new friends
When the Thackeray-led MVA government was in power, the Enforcement Directorate had — in November 2020 — raided properties belonging to MLA Pratap Sarnaik, then part of the undivided Shiv Sena, which had slammed it as political vendetta.
Sarnaik was off the radar for months after the ED raids, until June 2021, when he wrote to Uddhav Thackeray, head of the undivided Shiv Sena, urging him to reconcile with the BJP.
His letter said, “It is better to join hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi again as Shiv Sainiks feel that would save the Sena leaders like me, Anil Parab and Ravindra Waikar from problems.”
While the party leadership distanced itself from the letter, Sarnaik did join hands with PM Modi in another form a year later as part of the rebellion orchestrated by Eknath Shinde.
Shinde split the Shiv Sena, going away with the majority of MLAs, including Sarnaik, to join hands with the BJP and form a government with himself as CM. Waikar and Parab, who were also facing central agency probes, chose to remain with the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction of the party.
Like Sarnaik, MP Bhavana Gawli and MLA Yamini Jadhav, who had courted trouble with the investigative agencies, also rebelled under Shinde’s leadership.
The ED had in 2021 started probing Gawli, MP from Yavatmal Washim, in an alleged money laundering case, saying she criminally conspired to convert a trust into a private company for layering of funds. In 2022, MLA Jadhav’s corporator husband Yashwant Jadhav was summoned by the ED for alleged violation of rules under the Foreign Exchange Management Act. Along with Yamini Jadhav, Yashwant, too, shifted to the Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
The mobile phone numbers of Sarnaik, Gawli as well as Yashwant Jadhav were unavailable. The leaders did not respond to ThePrint’s text and Whatsapp messages either.
Rinse, repeat
In 2014, ahead of the Maharashtra assembly polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had slammed the undivided NCP as “Naturally Corrupt Party”, a claim that he repeated in several forms at several rallies over the years.
However, a year after the BJP allied with the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, it brought into its fold a significant portion of the NCP, too, including some party stalwarts against which its government had initiated inquiries.
The ED has been probing Ajit Pawar, now Deputy CM, in connection with alleged irregularities in the functioning of the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank since 2019. In 2021, when Ajit Pawar was deputy CM in the MVA government, the ED had attached properties owned by a company in which Ajit Pawar and his wife Sunetra were major stakeholders.
The agency, however, did not name Ajit Pawar in its chargesheet filed in April 2023, three months before Ajit Pawar split the NCP.
The primary case was filed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), while the ED had filed a separate offence to probe money laundering.
In October 2020, when the MVA government was in power, the EOW filed a closure report in the case. However, in October 2022, when the Shinde-led government, comprising his faction of the Shiv Sena and the BJP, was in power, the agency reportedly said it wanted to continue the probe. Last month, the EOW once again filed a closure report in the case under a government of the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, BJP and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP.
A few months before the split in the NCP, the ED had raided properties of Hasan Mushrif in connection with alleged irregularities in the operations of some sugar mills connected with the leader. He had then called it a “deliberate attempt” to implicate him.
Mushrif had sought pre-arrest bail and said in his application that the ED investigation was “nothing but the result of a motivated conspiracy, indicating clear mala fides so as to negatively affect the ever-rising political career of the applicant”.
The ED had also seized properties of former Union minister Praful Patel in connection with a money laundering probe linked to the assets of Iqbal Mirchi, who was a close aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.
Both Mushrif and Patel have since defected. While Mushrif is a cabinet minister in the Shinde-led government, Patel is a Rajya Sabha MP.
The ED had in 2016 filed a case against Chhagan Bhujbal for alleged money laundering based on complaints by state agencies. The ACB was probing Bhujbal in connection with a case dating back to 2005, when the government had issued a contract for the construction of the new Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi, supposedly without inviting tenders. Bhujbal was the public works development minister then.
The scope of work included the construction of a regional transport office in Andheri and a state guest house in Malabar Hill.
Bhujbal spent almost two years behind bars. In 2021, a special court discharged him and other accused from the ACB case, based on which he filed a discharge application in the ED case too. He is also among the leaders who defected with Ajit Pawar.
Deputy CM Pawar, Mushrif, Bhujbal and Patel did not respond to ThePrint’s calls and text messages.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)