Ex-cop Sachin Waze's revelations rattle Maharashtra politics as election approaches

Sachin Waze

The political tension in Maharashtra escalated on Saturday as former state police officer Sachin Waze claimed he had named another minister from the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, Jayant Patil, in his alleged letter to Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis concerning the orchestra bars extortion case involving former home minister Anil Deshmukh.

Waze's revelations, made while he is currently jailed in a murder case, sparked a new round of heated exchanges between the BJP and NCP (Sharad Pawar). Waze was quoted in a report published in The Times of India as saying that in his letter addressed to Fadnavis, he has mentioned Patil’s name.

Fadnavis addressed media on Saturday in Nagpur on the matter and said that he hadn't read Waze’s letter and if needed, its authenticity would be verified and an investigation would follow.

Commenting on the developments, NCP-SP’s Jayant Patil, as per the TOI report, said, “Nowadays, a person in jail is also giving an interview. There are serious allegations against him (Waze), I don’t think I need to reply to him.”

On Friday, Sachin Waze spoke to the media while being escorted by a police team from court to jail. The case recently resurfaced in the news after Anil Deshmukh alleged that Devendra Fadnavis had tried to pressure him into filing false affidavits against then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, his son Aaditya Thackeray, former Deputy CM Ajit Pawar and former minister Anil Parab three years ago.
In 2021, under the MVA government led by Uddhav Thackeray, former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh alleged that then home minister Anil Deshmukh had instructed Sachin Waze to collect Rs 100 crore from orchestra bars in Mumbai. Singh made this accusation after Deshmukh removed him from the police commissioner’s post following controversies surrounding the Antilia bomb scare and the Mansukh Hiran murder case, which resulted in Waze's arrest by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

According to the TOI report, in Nagpur, after sharing the stage with Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis at the inauguration of the state planning commission building on Saturday, Anil Deshmukh denied the allegations, explicitly stating that Sachin Waze's testimony was unreliable due to his criminal background. Deshmukh questioned Fadnavis's judgment in leveraging Waze's claims against him, accusing the Deputy Chief Minister of orchestrating these allegations as retaliation for his recent revelations.

NCP-SP MP Supriya Sule questioned the timing of Waze’s statement as the assembly election is approaching.