NEW DELHI: The Congress on Friday demanded a judicial inquiry into the alleged suicide of Dadra and Nagar Haveli MP Mohan Delkar in Mumbai earlier this week and asked why the Centre had not acted when he repeatedly raised the issue of "harassment" by the union territory's administrator.
The Opposition party claimed the seven-time MP, who was found dead in a hotel room, had named the administrator, Praful Khoda Patel, and other officials of the union territory in his purported suicide note.
According to Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera, Delkar had in the past written letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and other senior leaders, flagging the "harassment" he was facing at the hands of the administrator and other officials of Dadra and Nagra Haveli.
"He (Delkar) had enumerated the manner in which he was being humiliated and harassed ever since he won the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 as an independent candidate," Khera said at a press conference here.
"This is a set template of the government in power (at the Centre). If you lose elections, you try and harass, you try and intimidate through agencies, governors, lieutenant governors and administrators. They try and browbeat the person, try and control him or her. If they agree with you (government), make them join you, if not then these are the tragic results," Khera alleged.
The Congress spokesperson also said Patel had been a BJP MLA and a minister in Gujarat, and claimed that he had close links with the top BJP leadership. Khera said that the Congress demands that Patel be immediately relieved of his duties and cases be filed against him for murder and abetment to suicide.
He added that there should be an immediate judicial inquiry into the entire matter so that Delkar can get justice at least after his death. The body of Delkar (58), an Independent MP, was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his hotel room in the Marine Drive area of south Mumbai on Monday.
Besides being a seven-term Lok Sabha member from the union territory, he was also a member of the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice and the Consultative Committee, Ministry of Home Affairs, of the Lower House.
Delkar is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.