‘For how long will these bank scams continue?’

Aam Aadmi Party leaders Ruben Mascarenhas, Dhananjay Shinde and Priti Sharma Menon during a press conference at the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh on Tuesday. Pic/Bipin Kokate

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) held a press conference on Tuesday afternoon at the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh in south Mumbai. The party, still on a high post the Punjab Assembly elections win, called for the immediate resignation of BJP leader Pravin Darekar. Darekar is the Leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council.

AAP targeted Darekar for his, "false claims of being a manual labourer in order to contest and win the Mumbai Cooperative Bank elections; and for overseeing the misappropriation of bank funds to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore during his tenure as the bank chairman," the party spokespersons said first up.

The accusations

As Mumbai AAP Prabhari Preeti Sharma Menon entered the conference room, she was heard asking those from AAP, "where is the man of the hour?" This man of the hour was AAP Maharashtra State Secretary Dhananjay Shinde, who took the mike first. Shinde exposed Darekar's ‘dubious credentials' as a manual labourer. Shinde said, "Darekar fraudulently claimed to be a "painter".

A labourer?

"The Leader of Opposition is an office of the highest honour, and we cannot allow a corrupt leader like Darekar to hold this office," Shinde said as he trained his guns on the MVA government in the state. He added, "The party has also failed to take action against Darekar." He asked, "From which angle does Darekar look like a labourer? We also asked him to give us some evidence like a photo of him involved in labout work."

Numbers speak

The AAP functionaries said the Cooperative Department's and NABARD's audit reports showed irregularities related to misappropriation to the tune of R2,000 crore from 2015 to 2021. "This is a bank where a majority of housing societies park their funds, but we have seen wholesale fraud with loans simply written off," said Shinde.

No action

The AAP claimed there has been no action even after complaints. "Today, people are fined and penalised for offences like spitting in public places, as they should be, as they must follow the law. However, there is no action against serious fraud like this." Sharma Menon said, "People put their hard-earned money in banks, but we see scams where money has simply vanished after loans are given. For how long will these bank ‘ghotalas' continue?" According to Sharma Menon, both parties, the BJP and Shiv Sena, now frenemies roar at each other and hurl accusations on television, "but there is no punitive action against each other."

A slap

Calling this fraud, a "slap for Mumbaikars and a slap for Maharashtra too," the AAP said there is a need for a "court-appointed Special Investigative Team (SIT), not a team appointed by any political party to conduct a time-bound investigation," said Shinde, Sharma-Menon and Mumbai Working President Ruben Mascarenhas at the end of a fiery 30 minutes.