Mumbai: The blame game over the failure of state intelligence on the Eknath Shinde rebellion has begun, with the Shiv Sena pointing fingers at the home department held by the NCP’s Dilip Walse Patil.
“It is impossible that the home minister was in the dark about the threat to the MVA government and dozens of elected representatives along with cabinet ministers leaving Maharashtra for Surat. Most of them have police security and cabinet ministers have police escorts which alert the control room about the VIP movement,” fumed a senior Shiv Sena functionary tasked with finding the lapses which led to the Eknath Shinde faction escaping to the neighbouring state with rebel MLAs without rousing suspicion.
The state home department had called an emergency meeting with senior IPS officials on Friday to take stock of the law-and-order situation in the wake of the rebellion and possible street violence in the event of the Shiv Sainiks taking to the streets.
Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse Patil, livid at the utter intelligence failure, has tasked Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Anand Limaye with submitting a report on the lapses which led to the failure of the intelligence department of the state police to report on the activities and movements of the rebel Shiv Sena legislators.
“The state intelligence department is tasked with monitoring political movements and giving a daily report to the CM and the home minister. The police security cover and the local police station give daily updates of political leaders and ministers to their respective heads of department, which is collated and a consolidated report is submitted for further action,” explained another senior IAS officer, requesting anonymity.
While Walse Patil has directed Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey to inquire into the movement of 40 MLAs for the last 30 days and their meetings on the days of the Rajya Sabha elections and Maharashtra legislative council polls, a parallel probe has been ordered into the working of the intelligence gathering process and reporting.
“It is shocking that over 40 MLAs and some ministers from the state crossed the Maharashtra border into Gujarat at midnight and no one had a clue. All elected representatives enjoy police protection and escort. Political interference has led to disillusionment in the police department,” said the alleged senior IPS officer now on Central deputation.
CM Uddhav Thackeray had lambasted the home department and had given an earful to the Mumbai Police chief Pandey for the intelligence lapses, demanding strict action against police personnel deployed for the protection of cabinet ministers and MLAs who defected with Eknath Shinde.
While all the MVA leaders were busy with the MLC poll results on June 20, Urban Development Minister Eknath Shinde managed to slip out of Maharashtra with some MLAs to Surat on the same evening. Other rebels joined them in small groups later that night and remained incommunicado until the next morning, when a panicked Shiv Sena leadership realised the missing MLAs had fled the state. The NCP president, Sharad Pawar, had also expressed doubts as to why the police security did not alert their superiors about cabinet ministers crossing the state borders and why the intelligence department had failed to act on inputs of the legislators going missing from their homes.
“It is not true that police security had failed to alert the control room about Eknath Shinde and other cabinet ministers moving towards Surat. A police post on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway had conveyed the movement of the cabinet ministers and MLAs to the control room. The police escorts of the cabinet ministers had been updating the control room on their walkie-talkies about the rebel group’s movement,” asserted a police inspector assigned to monitor VIP movement.
