Govt will probe authenticity of video clips: Sharad Pawar

NCP chief Sharad Pawar

A day after BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis created a flutter alleging that the ruling MVA was hatching a conspiracy against its opponents, and submitted video "proof" in the Assembly, NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said the state government will probe the authenticity of the clips.

Interacting with reporters, Pawar also said his name was being mentioned "directly or indirectly" in the recordings submitted in connection with the alleged conspiracy and added that he was "nowhere" related to it.

Fadnavis on Tuesday submitted to Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal a pen drive containing video recordings, saying the footage showed how conspiracies were hatched by police and MVA members to frame BJP leaders, including himself and Girish Mahajan, in false cases. He had demanded a CBI probe.

Pawar said the claim that he wanted to finish Fadnavis and Mahajan politically was "laughable". "So, it seems there is also some comic information in it [clips]. One cannot get finished like this... If it is true that the recording is of 125 hours, then the use of a powerful agency cannot be ruled out...and such agencies are only under the government of India," he said.
It is "praiseworthy" that Fadnavis or any of his colleagues succeeded in capturing the nearly 125-hour video footage, Pawar said sarcastically.

‘Need to check veracity'

"It first needs to be proved whether it (the recording) is authentic or not. The state government will definitely probe...the veracity needs to be confirmed," he said, adding that facts will be kept before the people at the right time.

Pawar said the MVA, comprising the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress, was not misusing power to target its opponents. "One thing has to be noted though that all the power of the Centre and all its agencies are in the hands of the people who follow the same ideology as Devendra Fadnavis," he said.

Pawar claimed that efforts to topple the MVA government have not succeeded, and hence, "such options" are being explored to bring it down.

The NCP boss, however, said it was true that he had asked Fadnavis to look into a serious complaint he had received about one of his colleagues sometime in the past six months or a year.

"Later, I was told by him [Fadnavis] that he was looking into the complaint I had sent to him and care will be taken to see that such things will not happen. The issue was over for me then and there. Except this, I am nowhere personally related to this," he said.

He hoped Prime Minister Narendra Modi will order a probe into a complaint raised by Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut regarding the alleged misuse of central agencies.

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