Maharashtra
Sharad Pawar aide Dilip Walse Patil to take over as new Maharashtra Home Minister: Reports
New Delhi/IBNS: Veteran Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Dilip Walse Patil, who is a close aide of party supremo Sharad Pawar, is widely tipped to take over as Maharashtra's new Home Minister after Anil Deshmukh's resignation.
Patil, a seven-time MLA, began his political career as a personal assistant to Sharad Pawar.
An MLA from Ambegaon, Patil, is currently the state Minister of Excise and Labour.
His father Dattatray Walse Patil, a former Congress MLA, was also close to Sharad Pawar.
Patil won his first election on a Congress ticket from Ambegaon in 1990.
In 1999, he followed Pawar out of the Congress party and joined the NCP.
Earlier on Monday, Anil Deshmukh resigned as Maharashtra Home Minister over corruption accusations levelled against him by former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh.
The Bombay High Court has ordered a preliminary CBI investigation against Deshmukh over the allegations made by Singh. It had given the probe agency 15 days for a preliminary report.
Within hours of the order of the CBI probe, Deshmukh resigned from his post citing moral grounds.
Singh, who was transferred to a low-key Home Guard in the aftermath of the investigation in connection with the Mukesh Ambani security scare case, accused Deshmukh of interference in police investigations and alleged that he asked police officers to conduct probes in the manner desired by him.
In his petition to the Supreme Court last month, Singh had said his transfer is a malicious move to suppress him as he was transferred immediately after he brought Deshmukh's corrupt practices to the notice of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and other senior leaders.
Singh was replaced at the insistence of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), one of the constituents of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition. Deshmukh, who is a senior NCP leader, had justified Singh's removal citing 'unforgivable' lapses revealed in the investigation of the Ambani security scare case.
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