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Updated: Oct 06, 2018 14:42 IST

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said he was acting against people who are acting against the Constitution irrespective their political or ideological leanings. “I am going to crush them,” the chief minister said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

The Maharashtra government was recently at the centre of a huge political row over the arrest of five activists. The police had claimed the five activists were part of a larger Maoist conspiracy but the government’s critics insisted that the five were being punished for their views critical of the government.

Fadnavis denied that it was a political witch-hunt. Had this account been correct, he argued, the Supreme Court would not have rejected the petition by “some pseudo liberals” to cancel the case.

But the five activists accused of close links to Maoists aren’t the only ones on the radar of the police. In recent months, the Maharashtra police have also arrested nearly half-a-dozen people linked to extremist right-wing groups in connection with a terror plot unearthed after seizure of an arms cache.

“That is my raj dharma. That is what I am doing. I don’t recognise extreme right or extreme left,” the Maharashtra chief minister told a gathering of business leaders, diplomats, political leaders and commentators at the summit, the theme of which is ‘Reimagining The Future’.

“The person, or individual or institution which is acting against Constitution, I am bound to act against them. They may belong to any class, may belong to any caste... any religion, any institution, they may have any leaning but I am going crush them,” Fadnavis said to an applause from the audience.