Why Kangana not called for drugs probe, asks Maha Cong

MUMBAI: A day after filmmaker Karan Johar was served summons by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for questioning in connection with the drugs-Bollywood links probe, the Maharashtra Congress on Friday demanded to know why a "self-confessed drug abuser" and actress Kangana Ranaut was not yet called for quizzing.

"Though the NCB has taken note of an old video of Karan Johar's home party, why is similar cognisance not taken of Kangana Ranaut's videos in which she confessed to drug addiction?" Congress Spokesperson Sachin Sawant questioned here.

"Moreover, that purported video is of 2019, when Devendra Fadnavis was the Chief Minister and handling the Home Department. Then, what prevented him from ordering a probe into that incident by the Mumbai Police's Narcotics Cell?" Sawant asked in a statement.

Slamming the NCB for "miserably failing" in finding the drugs angle in the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, Sawant accused the agency of probing issues that have no relation to the case for which they were called by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

He pointed out that it was now over six months since Sushant's death on June 14, but the CBI had kept mum on the probe in the case, despite demands by the Maha Vikas Aghadi government to make public the details.

"Hence, the real motive was to defame Maharashtra. The defamation of Mumbai Police and Bollywood started after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath decided to have a new film industry in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP used national investigation agencies and Sushant's death for its dirty politics," Sawant said.

In the past few months, the ruling allies, Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress, have raised the issue several times and sought to know the status of the Sushant death probe, even as the NCB continued its own lines of investigation pertaining to the Bollywood-drugs mafia nexus.