New Delhi: Shiv Sena’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut has written to the Upper House’s chairman Venkaiah Naidu with the allegation that the Enforcement Directorate has been harassing and intimidating him and his family ever since he refused to help topple the Maharashtra government a month ago.
Raut said he was approached by “certain people” who asked him to be instrumental in forcing midterm elections in Maharashtra. When he refused, he was allegedly warned and told that his and other party leaders’ fates could be similar to a “former union railway minister who spent many years behind the bars”.
He alleged that officials in the ED had been asked by their “bosses” to “fix” him.
सत्यमेव जयते.. pic.twitter.com/ImdX7wPuYa
— Sanjay Raut (@rautsanjay61) February 8, 2022
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ED officials, Raut alleged would call and threaten participants in a 17-year-old land deal, details of which are in the public domain.
“For all these years, there was no question asked to me, however suddenly now everything has become a matter of ‘concern for the ED and other agencies,” Raut said in the letter.
Even decorators and vendors involved in arrangements for Raut’s daughter’s wedding are being “summoned, intimated and threatened” by ED and other agencies, he wrote.
Raut has also alleged that 28 people were unlawfully picked up by the ED, whose officials kept them wrongfully confined for hours in their office.
Urging Naidu to take note of the alleged abuse of power, Raut noted that he was not scared and would continue to exercise his right to speak inside and outside the House and question the government.
“ED and other central agencies are being used with oblique motive of toppling democratically elected governments which is certainly not a healthy sign for any country where democracy prevails,” he wrote.
Campaigning in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow on Saturday, February 5, Raut had taken up the Bharatiya Janata Party’s alleged use of the Enforcement Directorate and other central agencies.
“The BJP uses officers of enforcement agencies to raid its political rivals and then gives them tickets to contest elections,” he said, as former ED officer Rajeshwar Singh’s candidature from the Sarojini Nagar constituency in Lucknow was announced.
Talking to reporters, Raut asked how anyone could trust an agency when one of its officers contests an election on a BJP ticket.
He had said then teams of the ED are visiting the houses of leaders in Maharashtra who are in parties in the opposition to BJP.
