Enforcement Directorate's case against Nawab Malik could not be more flimsy

Within hours of the Enforcement Directorate arresting Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Wednesday, the Maharashtra cabinet met and declared that Malik’s resignation would not be sought or accepted. Congress, Shiv Sena and NCP leaders then called on Sharad Pawar’s residence and rallied around Malik. By closing ranks they not only dispelled all talk of rift in the alliance but also signalled that they would fight back against BJP’s bullying. Enough is enough, conveyed the mood.

This kind of rallying was not visible when the ED arrested the state’s home minister Anil Deshmukh last year. This was partly because of doubts about the nature of charges and evidence against him and partly because it was unexpected. But Malik was expecting a visit from ED for the past few months ever since he took on the Narcotics Control Bureau’s regional office and accused it of complicity and conspiracy with the BJP to malign the state.

What is more, the charge against Malik prima facie appears farfetched. One of his companies had bought a plot of land in 2003 for a sum of Rs. 50 lakh from the sister of fugitive Dawood Ibrahim. After almost 20 years, he is now accused of funding Dawood’s terrorist activities.

Last week itself Shiv Sena spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut, who himself has had ED raiding his friends and family, publicly alleged that he was pressurised by the BJP to help it topple the MVA government in Maharashtra or face the consequences.

Raut, for his part, levelled his own set of corruption charges against former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and former BJP MP Kirit Somaiya and threatened that he had adequate documentary evidence to back up his charges.

The “fightback”, the word used by Raut, against bullying by central agencies seemed to have begun with Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao calling on his Maharashtra counterpart Uddhav Thackeray. In a no-holds-barred message later, Rao said if the BJP did not stop its policy of misusing central agencies to target rivals, there would be “consequences to pay”.

The show of unity and solidarity by MVA partners, the high profile visit of KCR and Mamata Banerjee quickly rallying round the MVA after Malik’s arrest indicated that the unity that the opposition could not achieve on their own is now being forced by the need to face BJP’s bullying together.

Both Banerjee and Rao were said to have initially favoured opposition unity sans the Congress. But when Rao arrived in Mumbai, he seemed to have had a change of heart.“We will all come together, one step at a time, state by state, region by region, party by party to take on the BJP together.”

The fightback has become visible this week but it might already have been set into motion when NCP president Sharad Pawar, whose close acolyte Anil Deshmukh was thrown behind bars on charges of corruption, had vowed that BJP would pay for every hour Deshmukh spends in prison.

Not apparent to the undiscerning eye, MVA government targeted BJP’s weakest link first–and that was Narayan Rane. Rane’s son Nitesh, who is a BJP MLA, was tied up in knots seeking anticipatory bail (which was rejected by the Bombay High Court, he had to surrender to the police and later got bail from a lower court) in an ‘attempt to murder’ case. The case was related to election to the board of the Sindhudurg district bank under the control of the Ranes, which the Sena is now attempting to wrest.

District banks are significant political instruments in garnering support of rural voters, as are co-operative institutions, and the attempt by the Shiv Sena now is to destroy the Rane family’s base in the Konkan and render Narayan Rane useless to the BJP.

Meanwhile, the government also began to study the legal violations that Rane might have indulged in during the construction of his multiple bungalows, primarily one in the prime Juhu area of Mumbai said to have violated not just laws relating to Floor Space Index but also those regarding Coastal Regulatory Zones.

The sword of Damocles hangs over the Ranes’ head even as MVA exposes links of BJP former MP Kirit Somaiya and his son, a Mumbai corporator, to the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank scam and charged Fadnavis of laundering at least Rs.7,000 crore through a Haryana-based “milkman”. Raut promised full disclosure at the right time.

It is no secret that the unexpected stability of the MVA government and its reasonably exemplary performance, particularly with regard to Covid management, troubled BJP. Unable to drive a wedge between MVA alliance partners or get a whiff of scandal against the Thackerays and the failure to engineer defections did throw a spanner in the works.

BJP leaders have been hinting that the MVA government would be toppled by March 10. The arrest of first Deshmukh and now Malik seemed designed to demoralise and intimidate the MVA. But its seemingly weak case against Malik suggests that they have overplayed their hand.

Sharad Pawar had once disparaged BJP’s tendency to target Muslims. “Any Muslim political worker in any party and they instantly wish to connect him to Dawood. Thirty years ago, they made the same allegations against me with no proof at all. Nothing came of it.”

BJP leaders Gopinath Munde and Pramod Mahajan had insinuated that Pawar was close to Dawood. Later Ram Jethmalani had accused Pawar of turning down Dawood’s offer for surrender.

However, Pawar was then the chief minister and Jethmalani did not reveal that Dawood’s condition for surrender was that he should be kept under house arrest in his own home. “You cannot treat a notorious criminal as an honoured guest,” Pawar had said. However, the BJP ensured the taint persisted but now Pawar, fighting for his supporters, sees no reason to put up with BJP’s shenanigans. It is a real fightback.

The political motive behind Malik’s arrest appears obvious. Maharashtra and the financial capital Mumbai are cash cows for political parties. Staying out of power in Maharashtra is disadvantageous to the BJP which has been looking for an opportunity to crawl back to power—after all it is the single largest party in the assembly. But the flimsy case against Malik might have spoilt the game.

(This was first published in National Herald on Sunday)