Bid to arrest me at Devendra Fadnavis' behest: NCP (SP) leader Anil Deshmukh

Mumbai: Launching a scathing attack against BJP’s Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, former Home Minister and senior NCP (SP) leader Anil Deshmukh said that he can be raided and arrested by central agencies any time.

However, the 74-year-old veteran politician asserted that he is not going to cow down.

Deshmukh, who is close to NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar, has been targeting Fadnavis, who is also state’s Home Minister.

Incidentally, both Deshmukh and Fadnavis hail from Nagpur.

It may be mentioned that Deshmukh, while he was a minister of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government, was arrested by the ED and the CBI in a case of alleged money laundering and was in jail for over a year and got bail. However, by that time the MVA was overthrown, and the Maha Yuti government was established.

Last week, the CBI registered a case against Deshmukh and four others including then Public Prosecutor Pravin Pandit Chavan, accusing them of conspiring to falsely implicate BJP leaders by fabricating witness statements and evidence.

The CBI lodged the case after a two-year preliminary enquiry which originated from a pen drive handed over to the then Speaker by Fadnavis who was then the Leader of the Opposition in Legislative Assembly.

“My house can be raided any time…I can be arrested any time,” Deshmukh said on Tuesday.

A five-time sitting MLA from Katol in Nagpur, Deshmukh said that it has been alleged that four years back, when he was the Home Minister, he pressured a Jalgaon police officer to take action against BJP leader Girish Mahajan.

"As per my information, Fadnavis is trying to get a raid conducted on me and get me arrested…I am not worried…I am waiting for the arrest,” he said.

Deshmukh accused Fadnavis of bringing Maharashtra politics to a low level by misuse of central agencies like ED and CBI.

The pen drive contained purported videos showing Chavan allegedly conspiring with trustee of Jalgaon Zilla Maratha Vidhya Prasarak Sahakari Samaj and lawyer Vijay Patil Deshmukh to frame Mahajan. Video/audio recordings of over 100 hours were submitted.

The case was initially entrusted to State CID and then handed over to the CBI.