In the last couple of weeks, two redoubtables of Maharashtra politics have fenced in a toxic and very public showdown. BJP leader Kirit Somaiya and Shiv Sena's Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut have been trading recriminations and rebukes for the past five years, but this time around the volleys are vicious.
In a fresh bout of sabre-rattling, Mumbai Police is to investigate a criminal syndicate and extortion racket by a nexus of Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials. “Mark my words, some of these ED officers will go to jail too,” Sanjay Raut told the media on 8 March.
This comes on a day the IT department is conducting search operations at the office and residence of close aides of Shiv Sena leaders and Maharashtra ministers Aaditya Thackeray and Anil Parab.
The department had recently conducted raids at the offices and premises of various BMC contactors and Shiv Sena leaders. Raut called it a ploy by the Centre to pressurise and destabilise the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government.
This acerbic slugfest hides more than it reveals. And has its roots in a series of events set in motion a couple of decades ago.
It all began when Kirit Somaiya, a chartered accountant by profession, a big cheese of Maharashtra politics, in the late 1990s, turned into a serial whistle-blower.
As the National Convenor of the Anti-Corruption – Scam Expose Committee of the BJP, Somaiya ran a nationwide campaign against the then ruling UPA government and its allies. He toured 16 states and 100-odd districts for “exposing” several scams. But Mumbai watchers say he was “characteristically silent on scams and corruption within his own party like the Yeddyurappa scandal.”
Somaiya often took on ministers and politicians for alleged frauds and hustles, regularly filing Public Interest Litigations (PIL). Somaiya, incidentally, has represented the Mumbai North-East Lok Sabha constituency twice. And still holds the position of vice president of the BJP Maharashtra unit.
It is an impressive list of swindles that Somaiya pursued:
- NSEL Scam
- Coal mining scam
- Maharashtra Sadan Scam
- Adarsh Scam
- Wheat Scam
- Demat Scam
- Maharashtra Irrigation Scam
However, Somaiya’s brand of political vigilantism was seen less as a crusade and more of a witch hunt.
Somaiya may have willingly donned the cape of an anti-corruption crusader for the BJP but was unable to muster enough support from his own party. Perhaps his biggest mistake was to take on the Shiv Sena so directly.
In 2010, during Balasaheb Thackeray’s lifetime, he alleged the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), ruled by the Shiv Sena since 1997, was being run by a mafia. Somaiya’s attacks were sharpened further before the Mumbai civic polls of 2017. At that point, Shiv Sena-BJP relations were at their lowest ebb. The two parties, though running the state alliance at the time, contested the civic polls as rivals.
Then came the rapprochement in 2019 when BJP president Amit Shah had a meeting with Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, at the Thackeray residence, Matoshree. Shah was accompanied by then Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
The BJP tried to rekindle the old flame of a Sena-BJP alliance for the 2019 polls, since both parties were bickering. The Sena’s condition: No Lok Sabha ticket for Kirit Somaiya.
Fadnavis was keen on an alliance with the Sena for the 2019 Assembly elections and the casualty was Somaiya. He was hung out to dry.
An irate but undeterred Somaiya went gunning for the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government when it came to power in late 2019. He claimed, in 2020, that state transport minister Anil Parab had illegally constructed a resort in Ratnagiri. It was Somaiya who put the spotlight on Uddhav’s wife Rashmi and Sena MLA Ravindra Waikar’s wife Manisha being joint owners of a property in Ratnagiri.
Under pressure, the Thackerays paid arrears of property tax in 2021.
Somaiya also played a key role in exposing alleged irregularities in the construction of a bungalow owned by Milind Narvekar, Uddhav’s personal secretary, in Ratnagiri. The bungalow was demolished in 2021. It was his complaint that saw Central agencies conduct raids on the relatives of Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar in September 2021.
This is when the Sena chose to counter-attack. On 5 February, 2022, Somaiya was allegedly attacked by Sena workers at the entrance of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). Somaiya fell on the steps during the attack. He sustained injuries in his wrist and back.
He had filed a complaint at the city’s Shivaji Nagar police station, alleging a scam at the Jumbo Covid Centre set up by PMC and managed by a private institute.
Sanjay Raut stepped up the attack. Somaiya and his son Neil sought anticipatory bail. The attempt to seek bail came after Raut demanded the arrest of the Somaiyas for their alleged links to the multi-crore Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) bank fraud case.
Mumbai Sessions court rejected the anticipatory bail plea. The court said unless an FIR was registered there could be no such plea.
Raut had alleged that Neil Somaiya had links with Rakesh Wadhawan, an accused in the PMC bank fraud. Raut said: “Mark my words...I repeat: Baap, beta jail jayenge. Period. And rest assured, apart from baap & beta, three central agency officials and their vasuli agents will also go behind bars. Maharashtra jhukega nahi!”
Raut said that Somaiya has invested Rs 260 crore in the Neerav Developers and questioned whether his son Neil and his wife Medha are directors of Nikon green Ville Project, a project in Palghar district.
An unfazed Somaiya tweeted: “Mafia Sena can’t STOP Me [from] exposing Thackeray Sarkar’s ghotalas (scams).” He added: “There are almost two dozen defamation cases against me. I also have filed 15 defamation cases against others.”
What lies beneath is a long list of alleged corruption cases where the names of big guns figure prominently. Somaiya was obviously used as a political weapon against the Shiv Sena at a point in time. Then the pushback from Sena happened, which is continuing.
This is an interesting tale of political tussle where the target is someone bigger but the pawn needs to be hit to send a message across.
In the battle between Central agencies and the Maharashtra government the list includes:
- Nawab Malik arrested by the ED in connection with a money laundering case with alleged links to fugitive terrorist Dawood Ibrahim.
- Anil Deshmukh, a senior NCP leader and the former Home Minister of Maharashtra, was arrested by the ED on charges of corruption levelled by former Mumbai top cop Parambir Singh. Deshmukh had to resign his post of Home Minister.
- Eknath Khadse, NCP, was questioned by the ED in a Pune land deal case. His son-in-law Girish Chaudhri was arrested for alleged money laundering. Khadse switched over to the NCP from BJP in 2020.
- Ajit Pawar, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, is under the scanner of the ED and the IT department over an alleged fraud at the Maharashtra State Co-Operative Bank.
- Sanjay Raut, Rajya Sabha MP, is under the ED lens in a land deal case. His wife is also being probed in a money laundering case. Vinayak Raut, believed to be the Sena leader's close relative, was recently arrested by the ED in a land deal case.
- Shiv Sena MLA Pratap Sarnaik is being investigated by the ED in an alleged Rs 175-crore money laundering case.
Currently, Kirit Somaiya is more of a lone warrior who seems unable or unwilling to hop off the battle-horse. He is charging at the enemy alright but there are no troops behind him. He and his exposes seem more like a smoke screen for the much bigger and brutal battle which rages in Maharashtra.
The author is CEO of nnis. Views expressed are personal.
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March 09, 2022 at 08:41PM
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