RK Singh's charges against Shinde: Result of a bad relationship

Former home secretary RK Singh’s serious allegations about Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde interfering in the probe into the IPL spot-fixing case being investigated by the Delhi Police in order to protect a businessman said to have links to fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim have until now been met with shock and calls for a probe. It now appears, however, that the bureaucrat-turned-BJP politician has had a series of confrontations with the senior Congress leader while he was in office. [caption id=“attachment_1339307” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sushilkumar Shinde. Agencies.[/caption] According to a report in The Economic Times, before his retirement in June last year, Singh and Shinde had had failed to see eye to eye on several issues, including the Delhi Police’s handling of the protests in the capital city in the aftermath of the 16 December 2012 gangrape and the handling of the Afzal Guru execution. Shinde recently mentioned that he had chided Singh over the handling of the protests in Delhi, especially the use of water cannons and other methods of force against protestors, which came in for widespread criticism. Singh, on the other hand, reportedly supported the strong stance taken by the Delhi police. According to the report, matters came to a  headwhen Shinde told reporters that he had asked Singh to ensure that Afzal’s family was kept in the know of the impending execution. The general agreement had apparently been to keep the execution a secret. Eventually, a speed post letter reached the family long after the execution, creating a political furore in Kashmir. Singh joined the BJP last month. On Monday, he claimed that Shinde had stopped the Delhi Police from interrogating a businessman whose name had emerged in the IPL spot-fixing case. “This businessman has a shady past and we had heard that he had some links with Dawood Ibrahim. But the Delhi Police commissioner was told twice by Shinde to not interrogate him in the spot-fixing case. I believe the questioning did not subsequently happen,” Singh told ET_._ He did not name the businessman.