Bawankule has strongly refuted the allegation that he was involved in the attempt to unseat the Jharkhand government, led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren(in pic). (File photo) Former Maharashtra minister for energy and former BJP MLA from Kamptee constituency Chandrashekhar Bawankule has strongly refuted the allegation that he was involved in the attempt to unseat the Jharkhand government, led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren.
Bawankule told media persons here on Monday that the allegations were absolutely false and an attempt to defame the BJP. “I have not even seen Jharkhand’s boundary. I don’t know Jharkhand’s history and I have never been to that state. So how can I pull down the government there? And do I have the capacity to do anything like that?” Bawankule asked.
“I am a very small (BJP) worker. I work in Maharashtra as my party’s general secretary. I have no relation with Jharkhand. When I have not even seen Jharkhand, I have no capacity to pull down the government there and somebody is hatching a conspiracy to defame the BJP,” he added. “I don’t know how my name cropped up in this matter. The police will investigate. I repeat that I simply don’t have the capacity to pull down a government. I am not such a big man.”
The other name from Vidarbha to figure in the Jharkhand controversy is that of BJP leader from Katol in Nagpur district Charansingh Thakur. Thakur said, “I am such a small man from a place like Katol, where I am just party group leader in the municipal council. I rarely go out of Katol and am short of time to address the issue of my own place. So where is the question of going so far away to Jharkhand? I have not even seen the state.”
Thakur, the former municipal council chief of Katol, was the BJP candidate from the constituency in the 2019 Assembly elections. He was defeated by Anil Deshmukh of the NCP.
The third person to figure in the controversy, Jaikumar Belkhede, couldn’t be reached for his comments. Belkhede is known to run a training academy called Tango Charlie in Kat for army and police recruitment aspirants.
Belkhede, an ex-CRPF personnel, was arrested in 2014 and 2017 in similar cases of army recruitment examination paper leak. It couldn’t be immediately known if he was connected to any political party. Thakur denied that Belkhede had any connections with the BJP.
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