Maharashtra home minister faces his biggest challenge yet

As a home minister, he tabled the proposed ‘Shakti Act’ to curb violence against women and children in the Assembly on the first day of the winter session

Fifteen months ago, Anil Deshmukh got the biggest opportunity of his political career as the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader was chosen to head the home department in the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. Till then, the five-time MLA had been a minister most of the time, but never the one holding a politically significant portfolio. Just when it looked like his stakes were up, Deshmukh, 70, faces the biggest challenge in his political life.

“I never had a stain on me in my 30-year-long political career,” Deshmukh had said in a function organised by Lokmat Group on March 19. (HT File)

“I never had a stain on me in my 30-year-long political career,” Deshmukh had said in a function organised by Lokmat Group on Friday. Within 24 hours, former top cop Param Bir Singh levelled serious allegations against him, alleging that he had asked suspended police officer Sachin Vaze to collect ₹100 crore every month.

Deshmukh, a fifth-time MLA from Katol in Nagpur district, is an NCP heavyweight in the region and belongs to an affluent family of ‘malgujar’ (big landholder) in the district. He started as a president of Nagpur zilla parishad in 1990. Five years later, he contested the Assembly election as an independent. He was one of the 40-odd independent MLAs who supported the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance government and was rewarded a ministerial berth.

With a masters in agriculture, Deshmukh later joined the NCP, when it was formed in 1999. When the Congress-NCP alliance government came to power in Maharashtra in 1999, he initially served as a minister of state for school education and was later promoted as a cabinet minister in the state government.

From 2001 to 2014, he handled different ministries, including excise, food and drugs (2001 to March 2004), public works (public undertakings; 2004 to 2008), food and civil supplies (2009 -2014).

He lost the Katol seat to his nephew, Ashish Deshmukh, the then BJP nominee, in 2014 assembly elections. Later, he regained the Katol seat as the NCP candidate in the 2019 state assembly elections and was appointed the home minister when the MVA came to power in November 2019. In addition to his portfolio, Deshmukh is also the guardian minister of Gondia district, a bastion of influential NCP leader, Praful Patel.

As a home minister, he tabled the proposed ‘Shakti Act’ to curb violence against women and children in the Assembly on the first day of the winter session. He also took a decision to ask for feedback from women’s rights organisations, legal experts, and citizens before the implementation of the Shakti Act. As a cabinet minister for food and drugs during the regime of Congress-NCP coalition government, he enacted the law in the state to ban gutkha, a type of chewing tobacco.

Ashish, who had defeated him in 2014 Assembly elections from Katol, felt Deshmukh was framed in the “scandal.” “Why should he demand huge money of ₹100 crore every month from an assistant inspector? It seems the allegations are politically motivated,” Ashish remarked.

Deshmukh’s cousin Ranjit was president of Maharashtra Congress and a minister in the first Congress-NCP government.