The Maharashtra Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut has claimed that the Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde had offered Rs 50 crore to each of the state’s MLAs to ensure their victory in the assembly polls. Speaking to the media in Mumbai on Monday, Raut produced two videos that purport to show two vehicles were ferrying about Rs 15 crore as part of this alleged payoff, while one car was let through following interference by an inspector who once worked for an MLA. Raut went further to argue that 150 of the MLAs have already received Rs 15 crore for each of the first tranches of the promised Rs 50 crore.
Sanjay Raut Accuses Shinde of Bribery
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He described this as one of the ways in which he believes Shinde’s government, Harrison Shinde, is misusing public money to hire individuals to go and vote for his party. There was a lot of controversy regarding this allegation, to which Shinde, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He has refuted and even asked for an apology. Shinde has accused Sanjay Raut of defamation and has threatened to sue him if the allegations are not withdrawn. Shinde has said that he feels these statements were made with the intention of sparking tensions and confusing the populace with some political agenda.
The allegations have thrown another dose of glamour into the political strife in Maharashtra, where the opposition parties have not lost a single chance to defame the current government. These accusations are likely to expand as the state comes closer to the next election cycle with a more focused probe into the government’s performances and political operations. It shows the growing factionalism in Maharashtra politics, for which Sanjay Raut’s allegations brought doubts over the functioning of the Shinde regime and the fairness of the Maharashtra assembly polls.
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