Activist Anjali Damania claimed that Maharashtra Deputy CM Eknath Shinde and rape accused theologian Ashok Kharat exchanged 17 phone calls during an earlier undisclosed time frame.
Speaking to a Marathi news channel on Friday, Damania added that several BJP and NCP figures had also interacted with the self-proclaimed spiritual leader before his arrest last month.
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In response, Shiv Sena-led minister Shinde Uday Samant argued that mere telephoning is not a crime.
Damania said she got Kharat’s Call Detail Records (CDR) through WhatsApp from an anonymous source.
“There were 17 calls between Deputy CM of Maharashtra Eknath Shinde and Ashok Kharat” she said without specifying the period, saying that the longest interview lasted 21 minutes.
According to Damania, NCP leader Rupali Chakankar spoke to Kharat more than anyone other than his wife.
The activist claimed that there were 177 calls between them for a total of 33,727 seconds.
After this association was exposed, Chakankar resigned as the Chairperson of the Maharashtra State Commission for Women. While serving under Kharat’s administration of the Mirgaon temple, she claimed that she was not aware of any alleged illegal conduct.
Further, Damania claimed that BJP leader Chandrakant Patil and NCP’s Sunil Tatkare each had eight calls with Kharat, while BJP minister Ashish Shelar had one.
Senior BJP minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule countered these claims by saying that meeting or calling someone is not inherently wrong as criminal liability requires actual complicity in the crime.
Samant, a party colleague of Eknath Shinde, also took the same stand. “No one should spread misinformation that calling or meeting someone is a crime. Shiv Sena is of the view that Kharat-like tendencies should be destroyed,” Samant told reporters.
Damania also noted that Kharat received international calls from places like Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Christmas Island and the US Virgin Islands.
CDR reportedly sent the data to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, DGP Sadanand Date and SIT chief Tejaswi Satpute, who is currently investigating Kharat.
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The godman was arrested in March after a woman alleged he repeatedly raped her over a three-year period; now he faces eight FIRs. After his arrest, pictures of Kharat with top politicians like Shinde and Chakankar were widely circulated.
Notably, Shinde visited the Kharat temple in 2022 when he was serving as the Chief Minister.
Kharat opened more than 130 accounts in two co-operative credit societies in Maharashtra under different names and made transactions worth nearly ₹In recent years, it was 63 million PTI referring to a police official.
One of the accounts was opened in the name of sister Rupali Chakankar. These details emerged during an investigation by the Ahilyanagar district police in a fraud case registered against Kharat, his wife Kalpana and three others. PTI.
