Soon after Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on charges of money laundering and terror funding on February 23, the top leaders of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (the ruling alliance of the Shiv Sena, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party) went into a huddle. The first meeting was at the residence of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, and the second at Varsha, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s official residence. They decided not to ask Malik to resign as it was felt that the charges against him were politically motivated.
Malik is from the NCP. He has been accused of buying a property in Kurla in suburban Mumbai in 2005 at a throwaway price from an aide of the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s sister Haseena Parkar and another accused in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts. Minister Chhagan Bhujbal said the government had decided to back Malik and pointed out that Union minister Narayan Rane was not asked to resign when he was arrested a year ago for making a remark against Thackeray. “This is an attempt to destabilise the MVA government and we will fight this together,” said Bhujbal.
The show of unity, however, could just be a show, as two sections within the Shiv Sena have opposite views on the issue. While one section feels that the MVA must take on the BJP and Central agencies, the other section is of the opinion that Malik should resign as he has been arrested. Shiv Sena minister Sanjay Rathod was asked to resign over the death of a woman in Pune even though there was no case against him. The NCP had then pushed for Rathod’s resignation.
The cracks in the MVA were apparent when ministers gathered for a public protest against Malik’s arrest. The only Sena minister present was Subhash Desai. While Aditya Thackeray and Sanjay Raut were in Uttar Pradesh campaigning for the Sena candidates in the assembly election, senior minister Anil Parab had gone on a pilgrimage to Aangnewadi in Sindhudurg. The chief minister stayed away despite being in Mumbai.
The BJP, meanwhile, has announced a statewide agitation to press for Malik’s resignation. “Three bomb blasts took place in Mumbai after Malik’s deal with Dawood Ibrahim’s gang members. The government should immediately ask him to resign,” said the leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis, who had exposed the alleged deal by Malik.
The arrest has come ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections, and the BJP is trying to corner the Shiv Sena by pointing out that it is sharing power with someone who is accused of terror funding and money laundering on behalf of Dawood. The Sena has always claimed that the Shiv Sainiks had saved Hindus during the 1992-1993 riots in Mumbai after the Babri mosque demolition in Ayodhya. The 1993 blasts are said to be Dawood’s retaliation to the riots.
A Shiv Sena leader said the Central agencies were targeting the NCP because the party was the weak link in the alliance. “Many NCP leaders have skeletons in their closets, hence the agencies are targeting them. The BJP feels that if pressure is applied on the NCP, the party may walk out of the government and then the government will collapse. But nothing is going to happen. The more they attack us, the closer we are getting, and this government will become even stronger and stable,” he said.
Also, the government is digging up cases against BJP leaders. “Everyone who enjoys power gets corrupted,” said the Sena leader. “We have files against BJP leaders Kirit Somaiya and his son Neil, Pravin Darekar, Prasad Lad, Girish Mahajan, Chandrakant Dada Patil and even Fadnavis. Soon you will see skeletons tumbling out of their closets.”
A week after Malik’s arrest, the ED turned its attention to Prajakt Tanpure, another NCP minister. It attached properties of Tanpure’s sugar cooperative in Ahmednagar district in a money-laundering probe into the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam. Tanpure, minister of state for urban development and energy, was questioned by the ED.
The ED said that 90 acres belonging to the erstwhile Ram Ganesh Gadkari sugar cooperative held in the name of Takshashila Securities and two parcels of nonagricultural land of 4.6 acres in Ahmednagar district belonging to Tanpure had been attached. The total value of the attached land is about Rs13.41 crore. The sugar cooperative was auctioned by MSC Bank in 2007 to Prasad Sugars and Allied Agro Products, a firm Tanpure owns, for Rs12.95 crore, when the reserve price was Rs26.32 crore. The ED probe found that Prasad Sugars was the sole bidder and due process was not followed. Tanpure is the third NCP minister to be targeted by the ED, after Anil Deshmukh and Malik.