By Raju Vernekar
Mumbai, Dec 29:
The Shiv Sena put up posters outside the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office in South Mumbai calling it the state headquarters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), causing the Mumbai Police to step in on Monday.
A police officer stopped the Shiv Sainiks from putting up the banner. However the Shiv Sainiks told him to complain to the BMC, since it is the city’s civic body.
The incident came a day after the ED summoned Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP and chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut’s wife Varsha Raut, for questioning in connection with the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank money laundering case. Varsha Raut has been summoned on Tuesday, 29 December, for the third time after she failed to comply with the two summons sent earlier on grounds of illness.
Varsha Raut had stated to have obtained a loan of Rs 50 lakh to purchase a plot of land adjacent to Kihim beach in Alibag in Raigad district a few years back. The ED wants to check whether she was in any way involved in financial irregularities in PMC Bank.
PMC Bank’s top management is accused of unlawfully sanctioning around 73% of the bank’s loans to Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL) group of companies and favouring its promoters Rakesh Wadhawan and his son Sarang. The bank allegedly concealed HDIL’s non-performing assets (NPAs) from RBI. The ED is already probing the scam in PMC.
The ED had filed a PMLA case to probe the alleged loan fraud in the PMC Bank in October last year against the HDIL, Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan and Sarang Wadhawan, its former chairman Waryam Singh and ex-managing director Joy Thomas.
However the Shiv Sena has alleged that the BJP is using central agencies like the CBI, Income Tax Department and the ED to target leaders of non-BJP ruled states. Reacting to the summon, Sanjay Raut said on Monday that his wife was yet to get any notice from ED. He said that he was ”not scared of anyone”. ”Targeting women of a household is an act of cowardice. We are not scared of anyone and will respond accordingly. ED needed some papers and we have submitted them in time”, he added.
The Sena spokesperson also listed the names of other state leaders, including NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel who were recently sent notices by the agency. “In last one year, Pawar, Eknath Khadse and Pratap Sarnaik (Shiv Sena) got notices and now you all are discussing my name. All these people are crucial for government formation in Maharashtra. The ED’s notices are mere pieces of paper, nothing else,” he added.
Raut claimed that 22 MLAs belonging to the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena were on ED’s radar and efforts were being made by BJP to pressurise them to withdraw support to the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Government headed by Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. He also claimed that he has a file which contains names of 121 persons, including BJP leaders, involved in scams, which he will give to the ED.
On Sunday, Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray also described the ED summons as “politically motivated”. “The ED move is politically motivated. We are not scared. The MVA government is stable,” Aaditya, son of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, said.
