Dhangekar questions Rana Suryavanshi case, threatens protest outside DGP office in Mumbai

Pune: After the Legislative Council graduates' and teachers' constituency elections, leaders of the BJP and the Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena have been trading barbs. Shiv Sena leader Ravindra Dhangekar and BJP spokesperson Navnath Ban had taken potshots at each other. Dhangekar has now turned towards Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. At a press conference today, he put questions to the Chief Minister and the police over the case of Baramati industrialist Rana Suryavanshi, whose name has been in the news for the past few days after he was shot at and attacked.

Dhangekar asked what the Home Department in the state was doing. He said BJP workers had targeted him although he was speaking the truth and putting the truth forward. According to Dhangekar, Suryavanshi is an industrialist whose name had come up in a case of a staged attack. He alleged that Suryavanshi lied several times to get attacks carried out and obtained Y-category security from the government. Dhangekar asked who attacked him and where the weapons came from. He said Date sahib is investigating the matter, but he wanted to know why the responsibility was given to the Director General of Police. He also asked whom the man is close to, whose man he really is, and where he is moving about while giving the police the slip. Dhangekar asked whether the Home Department or the Chief Minister was behind this.

On a project in Gadchiroli, Dhangekar claimed that inquiries showed Suryavanshi had undertaken a 264-acre project there. He asked what role the registration department, the talathi department and the revenue department had played, how the lands were acquired and with whose blessings the project was started. He asked whether Suryavanshi was converting someone's black money into white or giving someone's black money protection. Dhangekar said this too should be investigated, because some members of Suryavanshi's family are officers in the revenue department. He also said Suryavanshi owns several helicopters and how he came to travel by helicopter is also a matter for investigation. He further asked how Suryavanshi got close to Devendra Fadnavis and whether he gained access by presenting a false picture to him, and demanded an investigation into this as well.

Dhangekar also mentioned an institution in Chincholi village of his Daund taluka. He alleged that this man, by taking the police in hand and exploiting his connections, continually harasses the decent people there and one family. He said that if the police are protecting such a man, those BJP people who are going around the streets these days should answer to Maharashtra. He said they need not answer him. Dhangekar urged Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to look into the matter and said that if such fake industrialists are not sent to jail in time, there will be even bigger scandals. According to him, ordinary people do not get even basic police protection, while fake cases are being staged by throwing dust in the eyes of the police.

Dhangekar said reports have been appearing in several newspapers for the past eight days, yet the police are ignoring them. He asked why no case had been registered against the accused even after eight days and who was protecting him. He said he would wait today, and if the matter was not resolved he would protest outside the Director General of Police's office in Mumbai. Dhangekar asked the Director General to take cognisance of the matter and save the reputation of the Maharashtra Police.