Sunetra Pawar holds NCP meeting as ACB raids tainted FDA Ministry clerk’s house

Ajit Pawar-led NCP leader and Deputy CM Sunetra Pawar held a meeting here at 6 pm on Monday to take stock of the political situation arising from an Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) raid and sealing of the state secretariat (Mantralaya) office of her party leader and Food & Drug Authority Minister Narhari Zirwal last week.

Opposition parties comprising the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and Congress had asked Zirwal to resign last week.

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Meanwhile, the ACB raided the Nashik district residence of clerk Rajendra Dherange who allegedly took the bribe on Monday, which has ensured that pressure has increased on the Ajit Pawar-led NCP to which Zirwal belongs.

In a related development, Rajendra Dherange, who was caught accepting a bribe red-handed by the ACB inside the office of the Ministry of Food & Drug Administration (FDA) headed by Narhari Zirwal, was produced in court here on Monday.

Yet, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP is said to be in a dilemma and Deputy CM Sunetra Pawar who heads the party is expected to take a decision to deal with the political fallout arising from the ACB action against her party man and minister Narhari Zirwal.

The Ajit Pawar-led NCP’s core committee meeting held on Monday at 6 pm took stock of the political consequences arising from Zirwal’s predicament. The decision taken at the meeting is still not known, but a discussion about electing Sunetra Pawar as the national president of the party is also expected, since the process will begin in the next 15 days, sources said.

As things stand, no leader from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP has come to the defence of Narhari Zirwal, except party MLA Amol Mitkari. So far, Mitkari alone has defended Zirwal, saying that he has been “framed” in the case.

“Narhari Zirwal is innocent. The details of who took the contract to frame him in the case will come to light very soon. Zirwal is a senior leader of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP and the face of the common people of the tribal community. He has done nothing wrong,” Ajit Pawar-led NCP MLA Mitkari had stated last week.

However, the questions being discussed in political circles is why Zirwal was kept in the dark about the ACB raid on his office and why the raid happened when he was away in Delhi. Sources said since the the ACB raid took place in the premises of the Maharashtra state secretariat building (Mantralaya), it had obviously received the go-ahead from the home department, which is headed by none other than Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis himself, whose office is hardly a few yards away from Zirwal’s office on the second floor of the Mantralaya.

The sources further said that the political inference is that since the raid is unlikely to have happened without a green signal from Fadnavis, there is something much more to it than meets the eye and there are several theories being discussed about the intention behind the raid, including a theory that it could be a move to put the Ajit Pawar-led NCP and Deputy CM Sunetra Pawar on the backfoot in order to use the embarrassing episode as a political bargaining chip.

“Additional chief secretary (Home Department) Manisha Mhaiskar, who is the administrative head of the home department, had signed off on the ACB raid and yet Zirwal had no knowledge of these developments. Moreover, the ACB team had visited the minister’s office on two occasions last week,” sources said.

“Also, the timing of the ACB raid is rather odd, especially considering the fact that Zirwal has been vocal about the merger between the two NCP factions,” sources said indicating the huge discomfort and unease in the BJP about any possible merger of its alliance partner Ajit Pawar-led NCP with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP).

On Thursday last week, the ACB caught Rajendra Dherange, the clerk in Zirwal’s office in the state secretariat, accepting a bribe of Rs 35,000 from a chemist red handed, to revoke the suspension of his licence. Dherange, who hails from Zirwal’s constituency in Nashik district, is originally an employee of the state Food & Civil Supplies Department, but was on deputation to the Ministry of Food & Drug Administration (FDA) headed by FDA Minister Narhari Zirwal.

Sources also said that both Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy CM Sunetra Pawar are in a dilemma about whether to allow Food & Drug Authority Minister Narhari Zirwal to stay in power or make him resign.

“If Zirwal is asked to resign, the Opposition’s efforts to portray the Fadnavis government as corrupt will get a big boost, especially after Ajit Pawar-led NCP leader and former Maharashtra Sports Minister Manikrao Kokate who had been convicted to two years’ imprisonment in a 1995 forgery and cheating case, had to resign on December 18, 2025. Even before that, Ajit Pawar-led NCP leader as well as former Food & Civil Supplies Minister Dhananjay Munde too had to resign after his alleged involvement in the murder of Massajog village sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh. If Zirwal is allowed to remain a minister, the opposition will keep using it to criticise the Fadnavis government, but even if he is asked to resign, the opposition would still project it as vindication and evidence of its allegation that the Fadnavis government is corrupt. So it is going to be a tough call for both Fadnavis and Sunatra Pawar to make Food & Drug Authority Minister Narhari Zirwal resign or even allow him to remain a minister,” sources said.