Dawood calls: BJP awaits Eknath Khadse report

Maharashtra Cabinet minister Eknath Khadse may be in for trouble as the BJP central leadership has taken a “serious view” of the senior BJP leader purportedly receiving calls from India’s most wanted terrorist, Dawood Ibrahim.

The BJP central leadership, sources said, is waiting for the Maharashtra police to submit its report on the issue to the Union home ministry. The BJP high command, it was learnt, is not ruling out taking “the strictest action” if the report substantiates the allegation that the Maharashtra revenue minister received calls from Dawood Ibrahim’s residence.

Mr Khadse had dismissed reports that he had spoken to Dawood or that he had made or received calls on his cell phone from Dawood’s Pakistan residence. He had said someone had hacked into his phone and cloned his telephone number. The BJP high command, sources disclosed, has been receiving updates from the party’s state unit, a section of which feels the controversy has tarnished the Devendra Fadnavis government’s image.

Meanwhile, in Jalgaon supporters of Mr Khadse, including women of the Leva Patil Samaj, in a show of strength on Friday marched to the Nashik collector’s office protesting the ‘defamation’ of their minister. The silent morcha was led by a woman announcer in an auto-rickshaw. She shouted slogans such as — We condemn the defamation of Eknath Khadse, Nathabhau (pet name) aage badho, hum tumhere sath hai (Keep going, we are with you). The delegates gave a memorandum of their demands to the collector and then dispersed.