Mumbai, March 21 NCP chief and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar on Saturday said she has forwarded Rupali Chakankar's resignation as chairperson of the state women's commission to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for acceptance.
Chakankar, a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party, tendered her resignation on Friday after facing criticism from opposition parties over her association with rape-accused "spiritual leader" Ashok Kharat.
Following a meeting with CM Fadnavis, who asked her to step down, she personally handed the resignation letter to Sunetra Pawar in the evening.
"Chakankar has tendered her resignation considering the current circumstances and ongoing investigation. To ensure that the investigation is conducted in a fair and transparent manner, I have forwarded her resignation to the Chief Minister for further processing," Pawar said in a statement.
Appointed as chairperson of the Maharashtra State Women's Commission first in October 2021, Chakankar was given another three-year term in 2024.
Kharat, who heads a temple trust in Sinnar and had several political leaders visit him over the years, was arrested by Nashik Police on Wednesday for allegedly repeatedly sexually assaulting a woman.
According to the complainant, he called her to his office sometime in 2022 after her marriage, claiming that his astrological predictions pointed to a threat to her husband's life and she needed to perform certain rituals to ward it off. He then gave her a drink laced with a sedative and raped her, the woman alleged, claiming that he raped her multiple times over the next three years.