Former AAP leader levels fresh charges against Eknath Khadse, threatens hunger strike

Mumbai: Adding to the troubles of Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse, former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Anjali Damania levelled allegations against him with regard to irrigation projects.

She threatened to stage a hunger strike in front of the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s residence from Wednesday evening if he did not sack the minister and initiate action.

Addressing a press conference here, Damania also alleged that Khadse was in cahoots with NCP leader and former Irrigation minister Ajit Pawar.

The senior state BJP leader, when he was a minister in Shiv Sena-BJP Government in late 1990s, had conceived the Tapi Irrigation Development Corporation, and got awarded contracts to his relatives and supporters, she alleged.

Damania also alleged that a plot purchased by Khadse’s wife in April 2012 was not mentioned in Khadse’s election affidavit in 2014, and the user (the stipulated purpose for which the land is to be used) was changed arbitrarily from educational purpose to residential.
Khadse was unavailable for comment.

The beleaguered minister is already facing an allegation that calls were made to his mobile from gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s house in Karachi. Another allegation against him is that his family illegally purchased a plot near Pune which had been acquired by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation.

He has denied all these allegations.