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Protest over Beed sarpanch murder: At Munde’s bungalow, meeting held to extort Rs 3cr from windmill firm, alleges BJP MLA

"At this meeting, Rs 3 crore was demanded from the company officials. The officials then conveyed this to their higher ups, who agreed to pay Rs 2 crore," alleged Suresh Dhas.

dhas, bjp, beed, sarpanch murder,Dhas (right) claimed that the officials of Avaada Energy, which was executing the windmill project, held a meeting at Munde’s (left) Parli bungalow with Walmik Karad. (File Photo)

Amid protests demanding the resignation of state Minister Dhananjay Munde over the Beed sarpanch murder, BJP MLA Suresh Dhas on Sunday alleged that a meeting was held in June, 2024 at the NCP leader’s bungalow where officials of a windmill company in Beed were demanded to pay Rs 3 crore.

Munde’s aide Walmik Karad, who has been in eye of storm since the sarpanch murder, was named in an FIR for allegedly attempting to extort Rs 2 crore from the windmill company and he had surrendered at the CID headquarter in Pune last week.

At the “Jan Akrosh Morcha” held in Pune to protest the sarpanch murder, Dhas claimed that the officials of Avaada Energy, which was executing the windmill project, held a meeting at Munde’s Parli bungalow with Walmik Karad on June 14, 2024.

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“On June 14, a meeting was held between officials of Avaada Energy with Walmik Karad and his associates at the Parli bungalow of Dhananjay Munde. After the meeting, officials of the windmill energy firm tried to arrange a meeting with Munde through his personal assistant. This angered Karad as he felt he was being bypassed,” said Dhas.

The MLA further alleged Munde held a meeting at his bungalow in Mumbai with officials from Avaada company and another firm on June 19, 2024, when he tried to “extort” Rs 3 crore from them.

“At this meeting, Rs 3 crore was demanded from the company officials. The officials then conveyed this to their higher ups, who agreed to pay Rs 2 crore. The officials were told to immediately pay Rs 50 lakh for election purpose. I do not know whether this amount was received by Munde or Walmik Karad,” alleged Dhas.

Urging Deputy Chief Minister and NCP chief Ajit Pawar to oust Munde from Cabinet, Dhas said, “Ajitdada… Why don’t you throw out Munde from the cabinet…If the information that I shared today turns out to be false, then I will quit politics… I urge Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis, Deputy Chief Ministers Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde to probe this matter thoroughly and take it to logical conclusion… Till the investigation is completed, keep Munde out of the cabinet.”

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“In the past even leaders like R R Patil and Vilasrao Deshmukh, who was the chief minister, had to resign after facing allegations. I request leaders of all the three parties (BJP, NCP and Shiv Sena of the ruling Mahayuti) to ask Munde to resign,” he added.

Addressing the crowd during the protest march, Dhas alleged that Beed has been made “Taliban and Hamas territoy” and urged the protesters to pursue the matter till the culprits are hanged.

The MLA also claimed that he was not making the allegations because he was not made a minister.

Santosh Deshmukh, 45, a sarpanch of Massajog village in Kaiz tehsil, was abducted and murdered on December 9. Deshmukh’s family claimed that he was killed because he had opposed extortion attempts by local strongmen with links to the NCP.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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