Mumbai: Sharpening knives, several women political and social leaders called on the Nashik Commissioner of Police Sandeep Karnik and Special Investigation Team (SIT) chief Tejaswi Satpute, seeking action against several bigwigs allegedly linked with the Ashokkumar Eknath Kharat scandal that has scalded Maharashtra politics. A delegation led by Shiv Sena (UBT) Deputy Leader Sushama Andhare, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Rupali Patil-Thombare, Sangeeta Tiwari of Biti

For years, Rupali Chakankar embodied a certain kind of political ascent common to regional satraps: loyal, organisationally useful, and closely aligned with the power centre of her party – first, the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and later the NCP faction led by the late Ajit Pawar. Her journey, from a Pune-based party worker to chairperson of the Maharashtra State Commission for Women, was less a story of ideological crusade than of careful navigation within a p

The recent arrest of Ashok Kharat, a self-styled ‘godman’ accused of rape, blackmail and occult manipulation, has rightly horrified Maharashtra. Yet to view this as the story of a lone predator is to miss the larger, more uncomfortable truth. Men like Kharat do not rise in isolation. They are legitimised and ultimately shielded by networks of influence that extend deep into the state’s political and social elite. The investigation, now in the hands of a Special Investigation

Mumbai: A belligerent Opposition and women activists on Saturday intensified their demand for criminal action against NCP State Women’s Wing President Rupali Chakankar, urging that she be booked as a co-accused alongside self-styled godman ‘Captain’ Ashok Kharat. Under fire, Chakankar resigned late Friday night as Chairperson of the Maharashtra State Commission for Women – enjoying a Minister of State rank - on the orders of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. She submitted her