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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Newspaper delivery-boy to Maharashtra DGP

Mumbai:  Acclaimed IPS officer Sadanand V. Date, decorated with the President’s Medals and one of the heroes of the deadly 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes (2008), will take over as Maharashtra’s new Director General of Police on Saturday for a period of two years. Presently, Date is the Director-General, National Investigation Agency (NIA) and earlier he headed the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), besides serving as DIG, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other critical policing...

Newspaper delivery-boy to Maharashtra DGP

Mumbai:  Acclaimed IPS officer Sadanand V. Date, decorated with the President’s Medals and one of the heroes of the deadly 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes (2008), will take over as Maharashtra’s new Director General of Police on Saturday for a period of two years. Presently, Date is the Director-General, National Investigation Agency (NIA) and earlier he headed the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), besides serving as DIG, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other critical policing positions at the state and centre in the past 35 years. Most recently, he oversaw the investigations into the massacre of tourists in the Pahalgam (April 22, 2025) and other major cases. Born in a humble family in Pune, Date, 58, had a life full of struggles, having lost his father when he was 15, and his mother worked as a cook to earn a living for the family. Hungering for education, the bright Date chipped in by working as a newspaper delivery boy from 1977 for nearly 10 years, to part-finance his studies in school and college. Over the years, he completed his B. Com. and M.Com ., became a Cost Accountant (ICAI), and even earned a PhD in Commerce from the Savitribai Phule Pune University. However, lured by public service he also appeared for his UPSC exams, and cracked it to become an IPS officer in 1999. During his tenure with the CBI, he was sent on a Humphrey Fellowship (2005-2006) to the University of Minnesota where he studied the scourge of ‘while-collar and organised crimes in the USA’, plus the theoretical and practical aspects of dealing with it. Armed with the expertise, on his return to India, he was made the Additional Commissioner of Police (Economic Offences Wing), then headed the elite ‘Force One’ in Maharashtra, designed on the lines of the National Security Guards (NSG), and was the first Commissioner of Police of the newly-created Mira Bhayander-Vasai Virar Commissionerate (MBVV). Heroic Act When Mumbai witnessed the dastardly 60-hour long terror strikes from the night of Nov. 26-29, 2008, a plucky Date - armed with the Mumbai Police’s modest weapons and courageous cops - literally chased the 10 Pakistan terrorists, particularly the trigger-happy duo - Ajmal Kasab (nabbed alive) and his equally bloodthirsty associate Abu Ismail Khan – near the Cama and Albless Hospital – where more than 500 women, children, doctors and nurses trembled, waiting for help. Date and his loyal band of Mumbai Police personnel valiantly battled Kasab-Khan, lurking in the darkness of the hospital precincts, firing indiscriminately at the police, before they abandoned that area and moved on to create mayhem at another location. In the shootout which saved many lives of innocents at the hospital, Date and his men were also wounded; in fact, at one point he was even speculated to be dead in some sections of the media. But he not only survived and managed to recover fully he bounced back headlong into his passion of policing and garnered awards and accolades. Among many honours, Date was awarded the President’s Medal (2007) and the President’s Police Medal (2008) for his meritorious and gallantry services to the country. A sweet revenge! When Sadanand V. Date helmed the NIA as its DG, it was time to ‘get even’ with one of the country’s most wanted fugitive criminals, Pakistani-Canadian national Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who was brought to India from the USA, in April 2025. It was a satisfying moment for Date - who toiled months with Indian and US agencies to wade through the legal tangles to ensure his ‘date with Rana’ – as the 26/11 terror strikes plotter landed along with a NIA team in New Delhi.

Clever seat selection helped BJP to secure historic win

The party won 65 seats against Congress, 37 against NCP (SP) and 29 against Shiv Sena (UBT)

Clever seat selection

Mumbai: The BJP’s strategic seat sharing with the allies has proved beneficial for the party. An analysis of the Assembly election results show that the BJP has scored over its main rival, the Congress, in a big way because of the direct fights.


The analysis shows that BJP defeated all three constituents of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) – Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) – in the direct fights. This is attributed as one of the reasons for the BJP’s historic poll success.

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The BJP contested 147 out of 288 seats. In 76 constituencies, it faced Congress. BJP secured victory in 65 seats and lost only 11 seats, making it a whopping 86 per cent of the total direct fights. This was followed by an even stronger performance against NCP (SP). Of the total 39 fights with Sharad Pawar’s party, BJP captured 37 seats making it 95 per cent of the total fights with NCP (SP). BJP and Shiv Sena (UBT) were head-to-head in 32 constituencies, of which BJP emerged victorious in 29 seats, making this 91 per cent of the total direct contests.


According to a BJP strategist the party had bargained hard with its allies, Shiv Sena and NCP to get the desired constituencies in the seat sharing formula. “We had studied to potential candidates of the MVA. That helped us in choosing the seats where we can register comfortable victories,” the strategist said.


BJP spokesperson Niranjan Shetty attributed the success to all the party workers who worked hard to boost development, infrastructure in the state. He gave credit to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for his contribution to the party’s success.


Shetty pointed out that in 2019, Uddhav Thackeray had stalled all the “novel” and “legendary” projects that Fadnavis had started when he had taken over as CM, making it very easy for the people of Maharashtra to strike a comparison between both the leaders and the potential they had for serving the people. “Devendra Fadnavis gave up his post very easily for the larger good. There are many such examples like Venkaiah Naidu who was BJP National President and later worked as the Vice President of India because that was the need of the hour. We seldom care about our posts,” Shetty told The Perfect Voice.


Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe refused to call the election results as the people’s mandate. “This is not at all a Janata mandate. Despite Maharashtra struggling with so many basic social issues, how can BJP acquire such a huge mandate is the question. If a student copies and fails with just passing marks, it can go unnoticed, but if a student copies and bags the number one position, something is fishy. Why is the BJP scared of ballot papers?” he said.

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