Hours after BJP MP and national spokesperson Sambit Patra criticised NCP’s Baramati MP Supriya Sule for denying allegations of illegal bitcoin transactions worth Rs 235 crore allegedly made in Dubai, NCP chief Sharad Pawar defended his daughter and lashed out at the BJP.
Reacting to the allegations, Sharad Pawar said, “The person who made the allegations was in jail for several months. Only the BJP can prompt such a person to make false allegations.”
Advertisement
Rejecting the accusations, Supriya Sule posted on X, “It’s appalling that such baseless allegations are made by Sudhanshu Trivedi. Yet, it’s 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”.
On Tuesday, BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra criticised Supriya Sule’s denial of the allegations, citing her brother Ajit Pawar’s acknowledgment of her voice in the recordings. “Today, Supriya Sule is claiming that this is AI-generated and not her voice, whereas her own brother Ajit Pawar is saying that this is her voice,” Patra stated at a press conference.
On the eve of the Maharashtra assembly elections, a former Pune IPS officer Ravindranath Patil had accused Baramati MP Supriya Sule and Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole of misappropriating bitcoins from a 2018 cryptocurrency fraud case, allegedly to finance the assembly elections. Patil had claimed that Amitabh Gupta, then Pune Police Commissioner, and Bhagyashri Nautake, then Deputy Commissioner of Police, were also involved in this alleged bitcoin misappropriation, allegedly benefiting Supriya Sule and Congress leader Nana Patole.
“There are four such audios of Supriya Sule. You can also hear Nana Patole of the Congress giving instructions to Amitabh Gupta, the Commissioner. In the chat that has taken place in the Signal app, apart from Supriya Sule and Nana Patole, there are some other big players. If there is any biggest player in this game of loot and corruption in this country, then it is Sonia and Rahul,” Patra said, adding that Rahul Gandhi must clarify if he had directed Nana Patole to do such transactions.
After casting her vote in Baramati on Wednesday, Sule firmly denied the bitcoin misappropriation claims and dismissed the circulated audio clips as fake.
“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.
When asked about her brother Ajit Pawar’s comments regarding the audio clip, she responded, “He is Ajit Pawar, he can say anything. ‘Ram Krishna Hari’.”
Sule has also filed a criminal defamation notice against BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, she said. “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,” Supriya Sule said.
Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole too has denied any involvement in the alleged bitcoin scam. Patole said, “The so-called IPS officer Ravindra Patil, brought by the BJP, is not even an IPS officer. On the eve of elections, the BJP is doing all this. The audio is not my voice. I am a farmer and I don’t even understand bitcoin. We have given a legal notice and filed an FIR. We will also file a defamation case against them whether it is Sudhanshu Trivedi or Ravindra Patil. Everything will be clear soon. The BJP is only lying. We will fight them legally,” Patole said.
In a related development, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided and searched the Raipur (Chhattisgarh’s capital city) premises of Gaurav Mehta, an employee of audit firm Sarathi Associates, in connection with an alleged bitcoin scam.
According to officials, the ED raids are meant to trace alleged financial irregularities related to cryptocurrency transactions and money laundering, linked to the ongoing Maharashtra assembly elections.
The raid has been conducted under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), officials said.
