Maharashtra: Was made an offer in jail but I didn't compromise, claims Anil Deshmukh
Nagpur, Feb 12: Nationalist Congress Party leader and former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, who spent 13 months in jail in connection with money laundering and corruption cases before getting bail, on Sunday claimed he was made an offer that would have seen the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi dispensation much earlier.
Deshmukh, who was arrested in November 2021 and was released on December 28 last year on bail, was speaking at the state-level Conference of Collective Forest Rights attended by gram sabhas and NGOs working in the field of river and forest conservation in Sewagram in Wardha.
"I was made an offer while in jail, which I refused. If I had compromised (accepted the offer), the Maha Vikas Aghadi government would have fallen two-and-half years ago. But I believe in justice, so waited to be released," he claimed.
The MVA government of Uddhav Thackeray fell in June last year after several Shiv Sena MLAs rebelled under Eknath Shinde, who went on to become chief minister with the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
"The 40 MLAs of Shiv Sena left the original party and formed government with BJP as they were threatened with action by the Enforcement Directorate. I was put in jail for 14 months under bogus accusations. However, I never gave up," Deshmukh claimed.
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Ministerial panel tasked with speeding up probe into scams during BJP rule to meet this week
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara on Wednesday said the committee of Ministers -- formed to review and coordinate regarding the action to be taken in connection with probe by government and investigating agencies into various scams that have taken place during the previous BJP government -- is likely to meet this week.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday constituted the five member panel headed by Parameshwara, and asked it to complete the task in two months.
The move is said to be aimed at turning the tables on the BJP, which has been targeting the ruling Congress over scams.
"Every case that is pending at various stages... some of them that have been decided and some yet to be decided...to review all of them and to submit a report a Cabinet subcommittee has been formed. Probably this week itself I will call a meeting of the committee," Parameshwara said.
Speaking to reporters here, he said such cases have been identified and their status report will be submitted to the Cabinet.
"We will not go on an individual basis, the number of cases that are pending, we will review. Cases should not catch the dust without action, so we will review them. We were doing it departmentally earlier, now it has been decided at the Cabinet level, so the committee has been formed, it is also to speed up the process," he added.
Parameshwara on Tuesday said during the BJP rule 20-25 scams have taken place, and all of them will be reviewed.
Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil, Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda, Rural Development Minister Priyank Kharge and Labour Minister Santosh Lad are the members of the committee.
On the BJP dubbing the move as "vendetta politics," the Home Minister said: "Let them say whatever they want, we will have to do our duty."
"As the ruling party we will have more responsibility. They (opposition) have the responsibility to criticise, advise and correct the government if it is going in the wrong direction. As the party in government we have our own responsibility and we are answerable to the people," he added.
As for the Enforcement Directorate in its charge sheet stating that an estimated Rs 20.19 crore of the funds misappropriated from the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation Ltd (KMVSTDCL) was diverted to Ballari during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in May, Parameshwara said the probe agency would have come to the conclusion based on the evidences that it has gathered.
On the Congress government maintaining so far that former Minister B Nagendra, who has been named as the prime accused in the ED chargesheet, had no role in the scam, he said: "what we say is not important....we would have said on the prima facie basis, but the detailed probe would bring the truth out. Now the ED has said about his role in the chargesheet, let's see what happens finally."
Asked about "differences" in the findings by ED and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe ordered by the state government, the Minister said: "such things happen several times, the evidence that both agencies got might be different. Different agencies will have different mandates....ultimately both will be considered."
