Cases against Bagwe are political, not criminal: Thakre

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The inquiry by the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee against minister of state for home Ramesh Bagwe has fizzled out as promptly as it was initiated. Mr Bagwe however has not been given the clean chit yet, MPCC president Manikrao Thakre said that all the cases against Mr Bagwe are political.
The state government and the Congress party are at sea after the Pune police refused to clear Mr Bagwe’s application for a new passport, citing 19 criminal cases registered against him. As the pressure increased for Mr Bagwe’s resignation, Mr Thakre announced on Saturday that he had summoned Mr Bagwe to explain the criminal charges.
Following their meeting in Pune, Mr Thakre has thrown his weight behind the minister. “According to the information I have gathered, Mr Bagwe has been exonerated in 16 cases. There are only three cases pending against him, but those are political cases,” he said.
The MPCC president has, however, not given the clean chit to the minister yet, and shifted the responsibility of the inquiry entirely onto the state government. He said, “We can comment only after the inquiry is complete. I have written a letter to the chief minister demanding a thorough inquiry.”
Mr Bagwe has claimed that the Pune police’s move to stall his passport application is a deliberate move to defame him. He also claimed that he is facing only three cases related to political agitations. Interestingly, in his affidavit filed last year before the Election Commission, Mr Bagwe has claimed that there are no criminal cases pending against him.
For the moment, the state government is preferring to wait and watch. A senior Congress leader admitted that the party is in a Catch-22 situation in the entire controversy.
He said, “Even if it is true that Mr Bagwe is facing three criminal charges and not 19, he did not mention it in his election affidavit. The Opposition will not spare any chance to target the Congress on this. But the party leadership will also have to be cautious while taking any action against him, as he belongs to the Dalit community and there might be a propaganda that he was made a scapegoat because of his caste.”