Mumbai, Oct 30 (TOI): Nearly six months after his unceremonious exit from the state cabinet, controversial BJP leader Eknath Khadse appears to be on the comeback trail even as a judicial probe against him in a Pune MIDC land deal is still in progress. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday did not rule out the possibility of Khadse rejoining the cabinet, but did not spell out whether he would wait for the outcome of the probe. "Khadse is a senior and respectable leader of BJP. We have set up a judicial committee to probe into the Pune MIDC land deal involving his family. I would like Khadse to be back in the cabinet... my best wishes," Fadnavis said.

In the wake of allegations that Khadse's wife Mandakini had purchased a huge piece of MIDC land in Pune in blatant violation of rules and that there was conflict of interest, since he (Khadse) as minister himself had heard the case in his quasi-judicial capacity , Fadnavis had set up a one-man inquiry committee headed by Justice D S Zoting to probe the land deal.

Even before the committee was set up, Khadse on June 4, 2016 quit the cabinet. While the committee was expected to complete the probe in three months, it has been given an extension of three months. A week ago, Khadse made written submissions before the committee, saying there was nothing illegal in the deal since the land was not in possession of MIDC. In a marathon interaction with the media on the eve of completing two years in office, Fadnavis spoke at length on the state's financial condition, the performance of his cabinet colleagues, malnutrition deaths, Maratha morchas and countermorchas by Dalit organisatios, the row over the film Ae Hai Dil Mushkil and loan waiver.

Asked if the Ae Hai Dil Mushkil producer has paid Rs five crore to the Army Welfare Fund as promised, Fadnavis said no such agreement was reached and there was never such a demand. "I am not aware of such a demand... it is for the film producer to comment on such a proposal," Fadnavis said. The CM's statement stunned the members of the fourth estate, since so far it was assumed that MNS agreed to withdraw its agitation only on the condition that the film producer would pay Rs five crore for the Army Welfare Fund.

Fadnavis said the biggest challenge before him was to tackle the worst ever drought in parts of Vidarbha and Marathwada. "Indeed, it was a big challenge, but we were able to tackle it. In certain parts of Marathwada the situation was so bad that we had to transport water by the rail network," he said.

For Fadnavis, the biggest challenges were the response to Maratha processions and counter-processions by Dalit organizations, the spurt in the deaths of farmers and deaths due to malnutrition and the increasing debt. The debt burden has crossed the mark of Rs 3.56 lakh crore, but so far the BJP government has not initiated stringent measures to tackle it. On malnutrition deaths too, despite the CM's claims, at the ground level, it appears there is a lack of coordination at all levels. The CM did set up a task force, though.