New Delhi: A Mumbai court on Monday sent Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut to four days in custody of the Enforcement Directorate, which is probing the leader for money-laundering in the redevelopment of a city chawl.
The Sena leader was arrested around midnight Sunday after the central probe agency questioned him for six hours at their south Mumbai office. Before that, the agency also conducted raids in Raut’s home from 7 am Sunday morning.
The Sena leader told the media before entering the court Monday that this was a “conspiracy to finish us”, while his lawyer Ashok Mundargi argued that Raut’s arrest was politically motivated.
Raut’s arrest comes weeks after his party chief Uddhav Thackeray was unseated as chief minister by a rebel group led by Eknath Shinde, and ably assisted by the Opposition’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP has propped up the breakaway Sena group to form a new government with Shinde as the chief minister and BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis as his deputy.
Meanwhile, Uddhav Thackeray met Raut’s family members at their home on Monday afternoon, and said he was proud of his party man. “There’s a dialogue in (movie) ‘Pushpa’ – ‘jhukega nahi’. But the real Shiv Sainik who won’t bend is Sanjay Raut. Those who used to say they won’t bend are all on that side today. That’s not the direction shown by Balasaheb. Raut is the true Shiv Sainik,” Thackeray added.
His son and former minister Aaditya said in Sindhudurg: “There is inflation and unemployment. But the only thing people focus on is politics and breaking other parties and their MLAs… those who raise voices against the wrong are suppressed and targetted.”
The allegations against Raut surround the proposed redevelopment of the Patra Chawl or Siddharth Nagar in Goregaon. Six hundred and seventy two tenants in the 47-acre area were to be rehabilitated and the rest of the land commercially developed.
It is alleged the developers, among whom was a close associate of Sanjay Raut, fraudulently made Rs 1039.79 crore from this scheme.
Also read: What’s the Patra Chawl redevelopment case that’s got Sena MP Sanjay Raut in ED’s crosshairs