Within days of Narayan Rane issuing an ultimatum to BJP to include him in the state cabinet, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has hit back by widening the scope of inquiry against Industries Minister Subhash Desai to include tenures of previous ministers in Congress-NCP regime, including Rane.
According to a news report, Fadnavis took this decision just before he left for Davos to attend World Economic Forum meetings. As per the decision taken by the chief minister, denotification of industries department land during the tenures of Rane, Ashok Chavan and Rajendra Darda—all of whom were industries ministers during 15 year rule of Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra—will be probed.
Last year, during the monsoon session of state legislature, the opposition had leveled allegation of corruption against senior Shiv Sena leader and industries minister Desai. Opposition had alleged that Desai had allowed denotification of 3,000 acres of MIDC land in favor of a private party and the decision had caused a loss of few thousand crores to state coffers.
The government had appointed a committee headed by former additional chief secretary K.P. Bakshi to probe the allegation against Desai. Following the decision by Fadnavis, the scope of Bakshi committee's probe now stands widened to include decisions of land denotification taken during terms of Rane, Ashok Chavan and Rajendra Darda.
