Deshmukh said that Delkar had come all the way to Mumbai to die by suicide and had said in the note that he could not get justice in Dadra and Nagar Haveli. (File Photo) THE PURPORTED 15-page note left behind by Mohan Delkar, the MP who was found dead in a hotel room in Mumbai two days ago in a suspected case of suicide, contains the names of the Administrator and top officials of the newly formed Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said Wednesday.
Deshmukh said Maharashtra Police will probe those named in the note. Delkar, who represented Dadra and Nagar Haveli, was found dead in a room at Hotel Sea Green South in Marine Drive on Monday.
In December 2016, Praful Patel, who was a BJP MLA and Minister of State for Home in Gujarat from 2010-12, was appointed as the Administrator for Dadra and Nagar Haveli. In January 2020, he became the first Administrator of the newly formed Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Patel could not be reached for comment.
During an online interaction with a Congress delegation seeking “a probe into the BJP’s role in
Delkar’s suicide”, Deshmukh said: “Delkar in his suicide note has named some officers including the Suprintendent of Police and Collector of Dadra and Nagar Haveli. Importantly, he has named Praful Patel who is the administrator of Dadra and Nagar Haveli in his note.”
The Minister said that a probe was necessary to check if Delkar was being pressured by officials at the behest of the Central Government. “Personally, I don’t think that a man of his stature, who has been a 7-time MP and managed to win as an Independent, would commit suicide because of non-cooperation from some government officials. We need to investigate if the Centre was putting pressure on Praful Patel who in turn was pressuring the local administration whose harrasment led Delkar to commit suicide,” Dershmukh said.
“We have sent a team of our officers. We will investigate the role of all those who have been named in the note. We will ensure that all those who are responsible get punished… In his note, he has mentioned that he is committing suicide in Mumbai as he knows he would get justice in the state,” Deshmukh said.
On July 5 last year, Delkar, who is a tribal, had posted a video on his Twitter handle where he threatened to resign as Lok Sabha MP and claimed that while he got support from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the local administration was “hounding him”.
On September 19, he had raised the issue during Zero Hour of “misbehaviour’ by local officials “as part of a conspiracy”. He claimed that on Liberation Day of the Union Territory on August 2, he was “denied the right to address the people of the region as an MP”. Delkar was also a member of the consultative committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice.