Dhananjay Munde, the Food and Civil Supplies minister in the BJP-led Maharashtra cabinet resigned on Tuesday (March 4), ostensibly on ‘moral grounds’ Munde resigned after a close aide of his, Walmik Karad, was accused in December last of the brutal murder of a local sarpanch in the Beed district. The fact that Munde belongs to the NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar points to the complexity and compromises that shroud the coalition politics of Maharashtra. The overlap between criminality and politics was put under the scanner by PM PV Narasimha Rao after the serial bombings in Mumbai in early 1993. Then Home Secretary NN Vohra was directed to review the nexus between crime syndicates and well entrenched extortion gangs that were protected by political personalities and certain government officials. Successive governments (Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and Modi) chose not to place the report in the public domain and it is now part of the sealed and forgotten archives of the Indian state. The Munde resignation is reflective of this deeply entrenched and well-oiled criminal nexus that runs a form of governance through brazen extortion. Given the snail-like pace with which whistle-blowers go for whistle-like cases, the conclusion is that India is not a safe country for whistle blowers.