Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 20: In an apparent bid to balance the opposition charge against the BJP stalwart of distributing cash to buy votes in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, the BJP on Wednesday levelled bitcoin fraud against the Nationalist Congress Party leader Supriya Sule and the state Congress president Nana Patole accusing them of using the fraud money in the election campaign.
Even as Ms Sule and Mr Patole trashed the allegations saying the audio clip presented by the saffron party did not have their voices, the issue has also caused further divide within the Pawar family with her father Sharad Pawar, the founder leader of the NCP, outright rejecting the allegations while her cousin brother Ajit Pawar, who caused the split in the party and supporting the BJP, quickly identified one of the voices in the audio clip to be that of his sister and promised to order an inquiry to bring out the truth.
The Maharashtra government will order a probe and truth will come out, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said on Wednesday when asked about allegations of bitcoin fraud against his cousin and Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule.” An inquiry will be done and the truth will come in front of the people,” Mr Pawar, who is contesting the Assembly polls from Baramati, said.
Whatever audio clip is being shown, I just know that I have worked with both of them. One of them is my sister and the other is someone with whom I have worked a lot. The audio clip has their voices, I can figure out from their tone. An inquiry will be done and everything will be clear,” he added.
The remarks play out against the rivalry between the two camps of NCP — one led by veteran politician and party founder Sharad Pawar and Ms Sule and the other by Ajit Pawar. An Ajit Pawar-led mutiny split the NCP in 2023, following which the junior Pawar joined the BJP-Shiv Sena government in the state. This election is also a fight between two factions of NCP to prove who has the people’s support.
Ravindranath Patil, a retired IPS officer who was in jail for several months on fraud charges, has accused Ms Sule and Mr Patole of being involved in a cryptocurrency fraud dating back to 2018. These funds, he has alleged, have been used in the assembly election campaign.
The BJP latched on to the retired officer’s remark and Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi accused Ms Sule and Mr Patole of using illegal bitcoin transactions to influence election results.
“An accused dealer contacts a former police officer, who has been jailed previously, and tells him that he (the dealer) wants to conduct bitcoin transactions in cash. The officer declines the request. However, the dealer tries to convince him, claiming that a few ‘big people’ are involved, allegedly naming Nana Patole and Supriya Sule. When the officer expresses doubt, the dealer sends him the audio clips,” Mr Trivedi said in a press meet in Delhi.
“According to the dealer’s claims, the audio clips mention the need for money for elections. We now have five questions for the Congress Party: first, are you involved in bitcoin transactions? second, are you in contact with individuals named Gaurav Gupta or Mehta? third, are the chats in question those of your leaders? fourth, is the audio in the clips authentic? fifth, who are the ‘big people’ referred to?” Mr Trivedi asked.
Ms Sule has trashed the allegations and challenged the BJP to a debate on the issue. “I deny all the allegations levelled against me by Sudhanshu Trivedi. All this is conjecture and innuendo, and I am ready for a debate with any representative of the BJP at a time and date of their choice, in a public forum,” she posted on X.
She has said it was appalling that Mr Trivedi made “such baseless” allegations. “…yet not surprising as it’s a clear case of spreading false information, the night before elections. My lawyer will be issuing a criminal and civil defamation notice against Sudhanshu Trivedi for making outrightly false allegations with an intent to deceive the public at large,” Ms Sule has said.
“Yesterday, all these voice recordings were sent to me by the media. The first thing I did was to call the Commissioner of Pune and tell him that some fake videos were running and I wanted to complain to cybercrime. I immediately complained to cybercrime that all these voice notes and messages were lies and fake, so I sent a notice to cybercrime,” Sule said after casting her vote in Baramati.
“After that, there is the spokesperson of BJP who held a press conference…After that, I called my lawyers and this morning I sent a criminal defamation notice to Sudhanshu Trivedi. I am ready to come out and answer Sudhanshu Trivedi anytime in whichever city he wants, on whichever channel he wants, at whatever time he wants, wherever he calls me, I will come and I will answer him,” she added. On Wednesday morning, the NCP (SP) leader said she has sent a criminal defamation to Mr Trivedi.
Asked about Ajit Pawar’s charge that the voice on a viral audio clip is hers, Ms Sule replied with a smile, “He is Ajit Pawar, he can say anything. Rama Krishna Hari.” The five-time MP has also filed a complaint with the Election Commission and the Cyber Cell in Pune.
Ms Sule’s father and NCP founder Sharad Pawar said, “…The person who made the allegations was in jail for several months. Taking that person along and making false allegations, only BJP can do this.” Mr Patole, too, trashed the allegations and alleged a political conspiracy by the BJP. “We will file a complaint,” he said.
Earlier, Ravindranath Patil had claimed he was hired as a cryptocurrency expert to investigate the case in 2018, but was arrested on fraud charges in 2022 and spent 14 months in prison. “During that time, I kept wondering what had happened, what the case was about, and why I had been trapped,” he said.
Patil said a key witness in the case – Gaurav Mehta, an employee of an audit firm – had contacted him a few times in the past few days and shared details about the 2018 cryptocurrency fraud investigation. Patil alleged that Mehta named Sule, Patole, and Amitabh Gupta in the case.
The opposition on Tuesday had shared a video clip made viral by a regional party of having caught red-handed the BJP general secretary Vinod Tawde of distributing cash to buy votes in a hotel in Virar falling under the Nalsapora Assembly constituency in Maharashtra. Mr Trivedi had ridiculed the opposition for levelling the allegations against a party stalwart of such a crime.
