A day after a Pune court issued a Non-Bailable Warrant (NBW) against him in more a decade-old cheating case, Shivba Sanghatana leader and crusader for Maratha reservation Manoj Jarange-Patil on Wednesday charged that the BJP-led MahaYuti government had hatched a conspiracy to put him behind the bars and eliminate him in the jail.

A Pune Magistrate A C Birajdar on Tuesday issued an NBW against Jarange-Patil and two of his associates Datta Bahir and Arjun Jadhav for allegedly flouting an agreement with a drama producer way back in 2013. Tuesday’s was the second arrest warrant issued against Jarange-Patil.

Jarange-Patil’s grouse is that Pune’s Kothrud police station was pursuing a 11-year-old case at the behest of the ruling BJP which, he said, was out to throw him behind the bars and bump him off there as it wanted to “silence” him ahead of the State Assembly polls to be held in October this year.

In his interaction with the media,  Jarange-Patil exhorted his supporters that in the event of him being jailed, they should make all-out efforts to “defeat” both the ruling MahaYuti and Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) candidates across Maharashtra in the forthcoming Assembly polls.    

Debunking Jarange-Patil’s charge, Maharashtra’s deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP distanced state government from the case in which the Maratha reservation crusader has been issued NBW, saying it had role to play in it. 

Today was the second occasion in the last four days, when Jarange-Patil accused the BJP-led MahaYuti government of conspiring to “eliminate” him ahead of the State Assembly polls. Earlier on Sunday, Jarange-Patil had alleged that deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was hatching a conspiracy to eliminate him by poisoning him through saline or in a police encounter.

During his recent four-day-long fast undertaken to press for reservations to the Maratha community, Jarange-Patil had singled out Fadnavis for vicious criticism.

“The state government wants me to die while I am on hunger strike. It is Fadnavis who is trying to eliminate me by poisoning me through saline or in a police encounter”.

Meanwhile, Jarange – Patil’s lawyer Harshad Nimbalkar said that he had   urged the court not to issue the warrant as he is busy with the Maratha agitation and on a hunger strike from July 20. He, however, gave an undertaking to the court that his client will come for the next hearing on August 2..

The contention of Dhananjay Ghorpade, a drama producer from Pune,  who has filed a cheating case against Jarange-Patil, claimed that in 2013, the latter had hired him for organising multiple shows of his stage drama, “Shambhuraje”, in Jalna.