The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police on February 27 initiated a probe against the Shiv Sena (UBT) faction. According to Mumbai police, the probe is initiated in connection with an alleged cheating and forgery case after the Eknath Shinde-led Sena registered a complaint against the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena alleging that they had withdrawn ₹50 crores from the party after the Election Commission had pronounced the Eknath Shinde-Sena faction as the real Shiv Sena party.
Speaking to The Hindu, police officials informed that in the month of January this year, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena had met Mumbai police commissioner Vivek Phansalkar and lodged a complaint against the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena on cheating and forgery. In the complaint, the CM-led Sena claims that UBT Sena were engaged in misusing party funds and fraudulently filing the party income tax returns.
Following that complaint, the EOW team wrote to the Income Tax Department seeking information on the tax filing.
“The probe has begun after the complaint was lodged by the CM Eknath Shinde Shiv Sena faction against the UBT Shiv Sena faction claiming that the later had withdrawn ₹50 crores from the party fund despite Shinde faction was declared as the real Shiv Sena party by the Election Commission. At present, we cannot reveal more as preliminary enquiry is going on,” an official from Mumbai police informed.
Last year, on February 17, the Election Commission of India had recognised Eknath Shinde’s faction as the real Shiv Sena and the party got the ownership of the original parent party’s symbol of ‘bow and arrow’ and declared them as the original Shiv Sena party founded by Balasaheb Thackeray.
