Maharashtra: BJP wins Mayor's post with NCP's support in Ahmednagar
Mumbai, Dec 28: Despite lacking the numbers, the BJP, supported by NCP corporators, won the election for Mayor in the Ahmednagar Municipal Corporation in Maharashtra, leaving the ally Shiv Sena licking its wounds.
The Shiv Sena had won the highest number of seats in the recent civic election but did not have a majority.
Amid high drama, the BJP, the Sena's senior alliance partner in the state, managed to install its candidate Babasaheb Wakale as Mayor.
All the newly-elected 18 corporators of the NCP voted for the BJP by defying the party diktat.
The BJP has only 14 members in the 68-member civic body against Shiv Sena's 24. But the BJP candidate polled 37 votes in the mayoral election.
Apart from NCP corporators, four members of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and an independent corporator too voted for Wakale.
Left red-faced, the NCP issued a show-cause notice to its corporators.
State NCP chief Jayant Patil claimed that clear instructions had been given to the corporators not to vote for either the BJP or the Sena.
"We are considering taking disciplinary action against them," Patil said.
NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said the party had contested the December 10 election to the civic body in alliance with like-minded parties.
"The party corporators had been warned against voting in favour of either BJP or Sena in the election for mayor," Malik said.
High drama was witnessed during the polling when controversial independent corporator Shripad Chhindam rose to raise his hand in support of the Sena candidate.
It enraged Sena corporators who pushed and shoved him inside the house.
Chhindam later aired a purported taped conversation between him and a senior Sena corporator who he claimed had sought Chhindam's support for the election for mayor's post.
Chhindam, a BJP corporator in the earlier house, was sacked from the saffron party after he made a controversial remark about Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
Friday's development could be embarrassing for the NCP as the Sharad Pawar-led party is in talks with the Congress and other like-minded parties for an anti-BJP alliance for the the Lok Sabha polls.
A BJP minister said while requesting anonymity that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had called Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray offering an alliance in the Ahmednagar corporation.
"However, NCP legislator Sangram Jagtap and BJP legislator Shivaji Kardile are accused in the murder of Sanjay Kotkar, Sena's former city vice-president, and party worker Vasant Thube. Therefore Thackeray rejected our proposal," the BJP leader said.
Commenting on the development, Sena leader Anil Rathod said, "People had voted for the Sena. However, to protect the murderers of our party-men, the NCP and BJP came together."
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Gang providing bank accounts to cyber fraudsters to launder money busted in Surat; 4 held
Surat (PTI): The Surat police have arrested four members of a gang, including one from Mumbai, for allegedly providing 623 bank accounts to cybercrooks in India and abroad for transferring crime proceeds of more than Rs 111 crore, officials said.
Three of the accused were caught transferring money, deposited by cyber fraud victims, from one bank account to another when the police raided an office in Gujarat's Surat city on Tuesday, they said.
The bank accounts provided by the accused were used by India as well as Dubai and China-based cyber criminals, who duped people through digital arrest, job, task and investment frauds, a police release on Wednesday said.
The accused used to charge a specific commission for providing access to their bank accounts, it said.
A preliminary probe suggested that the four accused, arrested on Tuesday, were part of a gang which used to work with cyber fraudsters against whom the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) has so far received 866 complaints.
These criminals face 200 FIRs across the country, the police said.
In June, the Surat police in Gujarat arrested eight persons involved in providing bank accounts (called 'mule' accounts) to cyber criminals to park defrauded money after charging commission.
Their interrogation brought to light that eight more persons, two of them based in Dubai, were also involved in providing such accounts, typically used for laundering proceeds of cyber crimes, the release said.
Based on the information gathered from them, the police raided an office in Mota Varachha area of Surat city on Tuesday and arrested three persons -- Ajay Italia, Jalpesh Nadiadara and Vishal Thumar. Another accused, Hiren Barvalia, was arrested from Mumbai international airport when he was trying to board a Dubai-bound flight, said the release.
Four others -- Milan Vaghela, Ketan Vekaria, Dashrath Dandhalia and Jagdish Ajudia -- are still at large. Vaghela and Ajudia are currently in Dubai, it said.
When the police raided the office in Mota Varachha, the three persons was busy transferring money, deposited by cyber fraud victims, from one bank account to another.
After completing fund transfer, their accomplices used to withdraw cash in Dubai using debit cards, the police said explaining the gang's modus operandi.
During the raid at the office and two other locations in Surat, the police recovered 28 mobile phones, 198 bank passbooks, 100 debit cards, 35 cheque books, 258 SIM cards and three computers.
The police learnt the gang was operating as many as 623 bank accounts, in which transactions of Rs 111 crore were detected, said the release.
A diary recovered from the office indicated the accused had acquired some of the bank accounts on a specific commission from 16 persons and they were charging fees from cyber criminals for using them, it said.
The NCRP data accessed by the Surat police indicated that of these 623 bank accounts, people from across the country had lodged 866 complaints against holders of 370 accounts on the portal as these were used by scamsters to accept money from cyber fraud victims.
The data also suggested the bank accounts were linked to 200 FIRs registered across the country for different cyber frauds, the police release added.
