Former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Terming the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) move to seek party fund donations from applicants to the posts of government-appointed administrators as “illegal and corrupt”, Leader of the Opposition in Maharashtra’s Legislative Assembly Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday said the state government should file a criminal case against the party unit.

In Pune, the NCP has asked all the aspirants to the administrators’ posts to pay Rs 11,000 as a donation to the party fund. NCP’s Pune district president Pradip Garatkar issued the instructions to the taluka heads of the party on July 14, a day after the state government ordered the appointment of the administrators.

“How can a political party even seek applications for a government-appointed post? An offence should be booked immediately,” the former chief minister told The Indian Express. “This letter shows the true intention of the state government. They are going to give these posts only to their own party workers,” he added.

On account of Covid-19 and the lockdown, the state election commission had earlier postponed elections to all gram panchayats whose elected bodies’ term comes to an end between the imposition of the lockdown and October-November 2020 and recommended appointment of administrators. In Pune district, 750 gram panchayats will require administrators and a couple of thousand aspirants could apply for the posts. Most of these are currently controlled by the NCP and the BJP.

“…all taluka presidents (of the party) have been given guidelines regarding appointing administrators based on lists of their gram panchayats that would have gone to polls. Following those guidelines strictly, application forms as attached must be filled out by all applicants and submitted along with a non-returnable party fund donation of Rs 11,000 that must be credited to the official bank account of the NCP Pune district,” the letter signed by Garatkar read. Details of the bank account were included.

Fadnavis said the decision to appoint ‘any suitable person’ as administrators is itself unconstitutional. “When elections cannot be held due to some reason, then the Gram Sewak or other government official should be an appointed administrator. The Maha Vikas Aghadi government has amended the law to select any person as the administrator. This is unconstitutional and we will oppose it,” he said.

Petitions have already been filed in the Nagpur and Aurangabad benches of the Bombay High Court against the Government Resolution of July 13 that entrusted villa parishad chief executive officers the task of appointing administrators “in consultation with district guardian ministers”.

Fadnavis said the letter by NCP Pune district’s president serves as an evidence of corruption and the district administration should file a police complaint in the matter.

Earlier in the day, Maharashtra minister and NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik told The Indian Express that if the letter was for the applicants to the administrators’ posts, it would be wrong and no such instructions had been issued to the parties by the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.