The Maharashtra government’s move to re-appoint Advocate Ujwal Nikam as Public Prosecutor within weeks after he unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls as a BJP candidate has sparked a controversy, with the Opposition Congress accusing the Eknath Shinde dispensation of setting a “bad precedent” by nominating Nikam in such an important position. 

Taking a serious exception to Nikam’s re-appointment as the public prosecutor in cases he was handling prior to his nomination by the BJP as its candidate from Mumbai North-Central constituency, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole said: “Why the state government has chosen to appoint a BJP worker in the judicial process? The BJP-led government has set a wrong precedent by appointing a political party worker to the important post of public prosecutor”.

Addressing a news conference at the state Congress headquarters “Tilak Bhavan” at Dadar in north-central Mumbai, Patole demanded that the Shinde government reconsider its decision to re-appoint Nikam as the Public Prosecutor.

In the recent Lok Sabha poll from Mumbai North-Central constituency, Varsha Gaikwad of the Opposition Congress trounced Adv Nikam of the ruling BJP by a margin of 16,514 votes. While Varsha secured 4,45,545 votes, Nikam secured 4,29,031 votes.

Office sources said that after he was nominated as the BJP candidate from Mumbai north-central constituency, Nikam had resigned from as many as 29 cases, including eight in Mumbai, in which he had been appointed as special prosecutor in May and had submitted his resignation to the law and judiciary department.

Now, following his re-appointment as the Public Prosecutor, he would represent the Maharashtra government in all the 29 cases for which he was appearing before the various before his nomination as the BJP’s Lok Sabha poll candidate.