Maharashtra BJP president Chandrakant Patil on Tuesday said he would not allow the upcoming budget session of the State legislature to function until the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government sought the resignation of Minister Nawab Malik.
Speaking in Kolhapur, Mr. Patil expressed ‘shock’ that Mr. Malik, a senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, who was recently arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a case of money laundering and alleged links to underworld gangster Dawood Ibrahim, had not yet resigned. He alleged that MVA government was actively backing him instead.
“On February 23, the ED arrested Nawab Malik. The minimum expectation from Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who remote controls the MVA government, was that a person [Mr. Malik] who had a direct hand in the activities of a criminal like Dawood Ibrahim activities would be asked to resign. Not only has this not happened so far, but the MVA’s leaders came out in Mr. Malik’s support by staging a protest outside the Mantralaya,” said the BJP state chief, warning that his party would not cease the agitation for Mr. Malik’s resignation.
