“The allegations levelled against me are baseless and they were made when the Assembly was in session when I enjoyed special powers being the speaker. There are special privileges to the speaker and his (Velip’s) statements amount to the insult of the position,” Tawadkar said.

Tawadkar, the previous week accused Gaude of allegedly embezzling Rs 26.85 lakh by distributing the money to clubs and organisations under a scheme of his department for conducting cultural programmes, which never took place.