Coming down heavily on the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government, the NCP on Thursday demanded that an inquiry commission be appointed
to investigate alleged irregularities in decisions related to confiscated commodities including tur dal. NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik has demanded the removal of food and civil supply minister Girish Bapat from the ministerial council until investigation into the matter is completed.
“Mr Bapat has admitted the mistakes of his department pertaining to the commodities including tur dal seized during raids conducted by the state government recently. The exercise was to curb the skyrocketing prices of tur dal but Mr Bapat himself accepted in his letter addressed to the chief minister and chief secretary Swadhin Kshatriya delay in responding to the directives from Centre to check hoarding of tur dal,” Mr Malik told reporters.
He said the food and civil supplies minister further contended in the letter that wholesale traders were treated with kid gloves even during the subsequent crackdown while warehouse owners, retail traders, NGOs, and consumers who had stocked pulses in a legitimate manner were unfairly targeted at certain places.“Not only this, unfair conditions were imposed for auctioning seized goods and Mr Bapat has blamed principal secretary Deepak Kapoor for all the wrong doings.
But our point is that he (Mr Bapat) cannot shirk from his responsibility by blaming the principal secretary alone. As the head of the food and civil supplies department he is responsible for each and every decision and thus the entire thing should be investigated by appointing an inquiry commission,” the NCP spokesperson said.
A sitting judge should be appointed to conduct the investigations and until then Mr Bapat should be removed from the ministerial council, Mr Malik said. Mr Bapat could be re-inducted in the cabinet after getting a clean chit in the probe, he added.
