Bhujbal denies claim he joined Mahayuti due to ED case
NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal denied claims he joined the BJP to evade ED scrutiny, citing development goals and plans to seek legal advice over the allegations.
Mumbai: Senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and Maharashtra cabinet minister Chhagan Bhujbal on Friday dismissed a claim in a book by journalist Rajdeep Sardesai that he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance to avoid being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The MLA from Yevla stressed that he had made no such admission to Sardesai, adding that he would seek legal advice over the claims.
According to Bhujbal, his decision to align with the BJP stemmed from a desire to “ensure speedy development” in his constituency, adding that the money-laundering case against him was closed when he was part of the previous government.
“I have not read [the book]. I don’t know what is written. Once the elections are over, I will surely read it. I will also seek legal advice. My lawyers would take a call,” the veteran leader said. Bhujbal was arrested in 2016 on money-laundering charges related to the Maharashtra Sadan scam while he was in the Opposition. He was in jail for two and a half years before being granted bail in 2018.
Sardesai’s recently released book, 2024 - The Election That Surprised India, claimed that Bhujbal felt pressured to support the BJP in 2023 due to concerns about a renewed ED notice, which led to his joining the ruling Mahayuti alliance along with an NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar.
Here is the controversial excerpt from the book:
“It was a midsummer evening in May 2023. Despite the air-conditioning in the Nashik hotel room, NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal was sweating profusely. As he sipped a glass of his favourite whisky, he looked and sounded anxious… Just a few days earlier, he had received yet another notice from the ED in an alleged money laundering case… Accused, along with his son and nephew, of irregularities in awarding contracts worth over ₹100 crore to a Mumbai developer, Bhujbal had already spent two and a half years in jail before he was granted bail… ‘I can’t sleep at night just thinking of my days in prison. I am seventy-five now, but they [the ED] are still gunning for me,’ he moaned.
“A few days later (after becoming minister in the Mahayuti government), I met Bhujbal at his official bungalow in Mumbai’s plush Malabar Hill area. He had lived in ministerial comfort for much of the previous three decades and seemed completely at ease here—a sharp contrast to the nervous Opposition politician I had met in that dark Nashik hotel room. ‘I assume you are sleeping well now?’ I quipped. ‘Yes, yes, I am so relaxed now, I can’t tell you—it is like a rebirth,’ was Bhujbal’s cheery response.”
Sardesai’s claims support the allegations of opposition parties that the BJP-led Centre has been using central investigation agencies to weaken the Opposition and take away their leaders. The claims ignited sharp political reactions. “I have spoken in Parliament on numerous occasions about the misuse of central agencies,” NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule told reporters in Pune. “Rival parties are being broken up by an invisible power in an unconstitutional way. As many as 95% of the cases registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax (IT) were against Opposition leaders.”
Sule also reiterated the Opposition’s jibe that the BJP forms governments by putting people facing corruption charges in a “washing machine” to become clean.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut claimed he had been targeted too. “I did not bow down…I went to jail…there are several others who feared the central agencies and switched over to the [BJP-led] National Democratic Alliance camp,” he said.
Asked to respond to Bhujbal’s comments, Sardesai told reporters, “I would suggest the people to read the book. There is a chapter on Maharashtra.”