Ready to teach Opposition how it should function in assembly: CM Fadnavis
Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said he was ready to teach the opposition how it is supposed to work in the legislative assembly.
The opposition's attempts to create a rift among the ruling BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP will not succeed, he added.
"The opposition needs to get into its role as opposition. The `last week motion' is an opportunity to discuss issues that could not be discussed in detail (earlier in a session) but are important," the chief minister said.
"I am ready to volunteer to train the opposition in how to work as an opposition party," Fadnavis said in his reply to the `last week motion' debate initiated by the opposition.
Fadnavis had served as leader of opposition in the assembly from 2019 to 2022. He was also a known opposition face in the assembly from 2004 to 2014.
Talking about the last week's violence in Nagpur, his hometown, he said 107 accused have been arrested.
On the law and order situation, Fadnavis who heads the home department said some 10,000 undertrial prisoners were released to avoid congestion in prisons during the coronavirus pandemic. In Pune alone, 269 undertrial prisoners were released of which 72 never returned to jails, he said.
These persons are accused in many crimes and some have become members of local gangs, Fadnavis added.
From 2022 to 2024, as many as 600 people were booked under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, he said, underlining his government's stern attitude to crime.
The conviction rate in the state between 2009 to 2014 was nine per cent, he said, claiming that now it is 50 per cent and likely to rise thanks to the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita which replaced the Indian Penal Code.
On Dalit law student Somnath Suryavanshi's death after his arrest in connection with the violence in Parbhani over an alleged desecration of a replica of the Constitution in December, the CM said the viscera report and autopsy reports gave different findings. The autopsy report stated that Suryavanshi may have died due to shock from multiple injuries but the viscera report did not record such a finding, he said.
"If the Justice Achaliya Committee which is conducting an inquiry found that Suryavanshi died because of police beating, then we will ignore the viscera report," Fadnavis said.
Four police personnel have been suspended, and if the panel found them guilty, they will be booked for homicide, the CM added.
On the brutal murder of Santosh Deshmukh, sarpanch of Massajog village in Beed district, he said modern technology was used to probe the case. The culprits will get the strictest punishment, he said.
