Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik A day after Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik claimed that an effort was made to force Aslam Shaikh, another Maharashtra minister, to visit the party that was organised on the Cordelia cruise ship in an attempt to tarnish the image of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government, Shaikh acknowledged that he had received an invite but said he did not know the person who had invited him.
“One Kashif Khan had invited me to the party… I don’t know him and as far as I know we never spoke on the phone. That invite was like many others I get daily… Since I had no plan to go, I did not inquire further and the matter ended there,” Shaikh said.
On Sunday Malik had claimed that Kashif Khan, an organiser of the cruise party, had tried hard to get Shaikh and children of top ministers in the state to attend the party in order to frame them and tarnish the MVA.
Shaikh said that as guardian minister, many people call him for functions or inaugurations. He said that Kashif did not call him on phone. “I didn’t want to go so there was no question of taking details of Kashif,” Shaikh said.
He said that two agencies are probing the case of drugs on the cruise and did not want to further comment on the issue. But he added that the BJP was defaming this government and trying to destabilise it.
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