MUMBAI:  Nationalist Congress Party Minister Nawab Malik on Thursday dismissed the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s charges that he was waging a “solitary battle” without anybody from the Maha Vikas Aghadi government backing him.“ I am not alone… Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, NCP President Sharad Pawar, all ministers, the government and the party are standing solidly behind me,” Malik told mediapersons.

This assertion came a day after the state cabinet presided over by Thackeray lauded Malik’s six-week long ongoing war in which he has exposed alleged acts of the Narcotics Control Bureau Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede, the BJP leaders and related issues.

“I may be fighting alone…But I have the full backing and blessings of all the top leaders that gives me the strength… I have taken up this responsibility to cleanse up certain things and will continue,” Malik declared.

In the past nearly six weeks, Malik has made a series of shocking exposures on Wankhede, the “farzi” (fraudulent) rave party raids aboard a cruise ship on October 2, how Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was allegedly “trapped and kidnapped” for extortion, a syndicate in the NCB led by Wankhede along with BJP activists.

It spilled over to the alleged underworld connection charges hurled at each other by Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis and Malik. Fadnavis raked up an old land transaction from Kurla which he contended was Malik’s business links with the underworld.

Malik hit back with revelations on Fadnavis’ alleged doings that enabled a mafia-linked person to attend an event of the Prime Minister and even click pictures, shielding shady persons involved in crimes like fake currency notes or bringing Bangladeshis to Mumbai or terrorising people in Nagpur by rewarding them with minister-rank posts.

Fadnavis shot out a tweet quoting George Bernard Shaw: “I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it!”

Malik retorted saying “it’s the culture of the BJP to give animal titles to people” as they have no respect for human beings.