SSR case: BJP, Congress in political dogfight over AIIMS report

Mumbai: A day after an AIIMS report said that Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput had committed suicide, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and ruling ally Congress in Maharashtra were locked in a bitter political dogfight over the issue on Sunday.

BJP state spokesperson Ram Kadam continued to target the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition of Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress, alleging it ignored the drug angle probe in the Sushant "murder mystery".

However, the Congress state spokesperson Sachin Sawant hit back saying "even after falling flat on its face, the BJP was attempting to keep its legs in the air, their face is blackened but they are trying to show their hands are clean".

Attempting to turn the tables, Sawant said the Maharashtra government has written to the NCB to probe the state BJP's "drugs links", and why or whom one of the involved persons Ssandip Singh had called in the BJP office 53 times.

"There is no connection at all between the drugs probe and Sushant's death. The BJP has been completely exposed in this as the state government has written to the NCB to probe and unravel the BJP's drug-connections. Why did former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis do nothing about this for five years?" Sawant countered.

In a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, Kadam said in the probe by the Narcotics Control Bureau (BNC), 20 persons including actress Rhea Chakraborty, have been arrested so far.

"The NCB has initiated a massive crackdown to expose the Bollywood-drug cartel nexus. This drug link with Bollywood seems one of the significant aspects in the murder mystery of late Sushant," Kadam contended.

He called upon the Maharashtra government to "at least take full responsibility" for its failure and in permitting the Bollywood-drug chain to blossom.

The NCB stepped into the picture after some allegedly incriminating WhatsApp chats pertaining to the narco-angle surfaced during the investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation even as the main Sushant case appeared to have been sidelined.

However, with the AIIMS report out now, the Sushant probe once again shot into the limelight and the MVA partners are now baying for action against those responsible for "defaming" the Maharashtra government and Mumbai Police in the matter.

(This report is from IANS feed, except headline)