BJP engineered splits in parties started by 'Marathi people': Supriya Sule
Mumbai (PTI): Nationalist Congress Party leader Supriya Sule on Sunday claimed the Bharatiya Janata Party engineered splits in two political parties started by "Marathi people".
"Balasaheb Thackeray and Sharad Pawar started their own political parties, and they received the love and support of the Marathi people. They both have roots here in Maharashtra, and their umbilical cord is with the state's people. The BJP engineered split in both the parties," Sule said.
The NCP broke up into two factions on July 2 after Ajit Pawar and eight MLAs joined the Eknath Shinde government.
The Shiv Sena split in June last year after Eknath Shinde rebelled against then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and brought down the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
The "same invisible hand in Delhi", an apparent reference to the BJP central leadership, caused losses to these two political parties, said Sule, who is Lok Sabha MP from Baramati and also working president of the faction headed by Sharad Pawar.
Attacking the BJP further, she said the party demoted the person who was chief minister of the state for five years. Devendra Fadnavis, who headed the government in Maharashtra between 2014 and 2019, was made deputy CM under Shinde by the BJP.
Without naming Fadnavis, the NCP leader said the former was further "demoted" after he was made to share the post of deputy CM. On July 2, Ajit Pawar became the second deputy CM in the Shinde government.
Sule claimed investments were leaving Maharashtra and said it was a deliberate attempt to reduce the importance of the state and weaken it.
She, however, clarified she was not against any state.
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Man arrested with Rs 2.54-crore heroin in Mumbai
Mumbai (PTI): Police have arrested a man and seized over 500 grams of heroin worth Rs 2.54 crore in the illicit market from him in Mumbai, officials said on Friday.
The police's Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) made the drug seizure in Santacruz in the western suburbs. The operation was conducted by the Kandivali unit of the ANC on Thursday as part of a special crackdown against drug trafficking in the area, they said.
Acting on specific inputs, an ANC team conducted a raid in Santacruz (East) and intercepted a man. During a search, the team recovered 508 grams of high-grade heroin from his possession, an official said.
The seized contraband, a highly addictive, opioid drug derived from morphine, is estimated to be worth Rs 2.54 crore in the international market, he informed.
Following the seizure, a case was registered against the man under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, and he was formally placed under arrest in the early hours of Friday.
The police are currently investigating the source of the drug and trying to identify the intended recipients of the consignment, he said.
