The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut for questioning on Tuesday in a money-laundering case, prompting allegations of intimidatory tactics by the Centre amid an alleged BJP attempt to topple the Sena-NCP-Congress government in Maharashtra.
Raut, Rajya Sabha member and close associate of chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, has been leading the Sena charge in the perception war against the rebel party MLAs who have taken refuge in BJP-ruled Assam.
Raut insinuated the Centre wanted to arm-twist him into joining the rebels’ ranks, and said he would not buckle.
“I just came to know that the ED has summoned me. Good! There are big political developments in Maharashtra. We, Balasaheb’s Shivsainiks are fighting a big battle,” he tweeted.
“This is a conspiracy to stop me. Even if you behead me, I won’t take the Guwahati route. Arrest me. Jai Hind!”
The Sena claims the Centre had used its investigative agencies to coerce many of its MLAs into siding with rebel leader Eknath Shinde. The party had earlier too complained of harassment by central agencies, as had partner NCP, amid allegations that the BJP was desperate to seize power in Maharashtra.
In February, Raut had written to Rajya Sabha chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu alleging that central agencies were harassing him because he had refused to help topple the state’s coalition government.
Commenting on the summons to Raut, minister Aditya Thackeray, son of Uddhav, said: “This is not politics, this is now a circus.”
The ED is probing several ministers and politicians from Maharashtra’s ruling coalition in connection with money-laundering cases.
The agency arrested Nationalist Congress Party ministers Nawab Malik (in February this year) and Anil Deshmukh (in November last year) in separate money-laundering cases.
The Centre faces longstanding accusations of letting its investigative agencies loose on Opposition leaders to intimidate or malign them. In 2017, raids by the CBI and the ED on family members of RJD leader Lalu Prasad had caused the grand alliance government in Bihar to collapse.
ED sources said Raut had been summoned in connection with the Rs 1,034-crore Patra Chawl land scam, in which the agency had attached his wife’s properties in April.
The agency had in 2018 begun probing the redevelopment of the Patra Chawl, an area in the northern Mumbai suburb of Goregaon, and related financial transactions that allegedly involved Raut’s wife and friends.
“We want to question Sanjay Raut to know about his business and other links with the main accused, Pravin Raut, and also about property deals involving his wife Varsha Raut,” an ED official said.
In 2008, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority had handed a contract to Guru Ashish Construction to redevelop Patra Chawl and rehabilitate 672 tenants.
According to the agreement, the ED said, the developer had to provide flats to 672 tenants, develop other flats for the MHADA, and sell the remaining area.
But the “directors of Guru Ashish Constructions misled MHADA and managed to sell the FSI (floor space index) to nine developers and collected about Rs 901.79 crore without constructing the rehab portion for 672 displaced tenants”, according to an ED statement.
The ED probe has found that “around Rs 100 crore were transferred… to the account of Pravin Raut”, an alleged associate of Sanjay Raut.
Pravin “diverted” this sum to accounts belonging to close associates, family members and his business entities, the ED said.
