Bollywood actor Riteish Deshmukh and elder his brother-Congress MLA Amit Deshmukh, sons of Maharashtra’s late Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, on Tuesday vehemently contested the messages floating around in the social media that they had sought loan waivers to the tune of Rs 4.75 crore from the Maharashtra Government.
Responding to a tweet put out by academic and chairperson of Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) Madhu Kishwar, Riteish tweeted: “Dear @madhukishwar Ji, The said paper in circulation is with malafide motive. Neither me nor my brother @AmitV_Deshmukh have availed any loan as mentioned in the paper posted by you. Hence, there is no question of any loan waiver whatsoever. Please don’t be misled. Thank you”. Interestingly enough, the original tweet put by Kishwar went missing from the twitter, after Riteish’s tweet.
On her part, Kishwar graciously admitted she had been “misled” into putting the tweet and expressed regret. “@Riteishdji, an otherwise reliable Mumbai friend sent me that info. Knowingly,I never publish misleading info even against someone I may hate. Sorry, in this case I was misled. From now on, won’t trust even good friends on SM matters. Sincere apologies.BTW I admire your acting,” Kishwar tweeted.
“I am also deeply impressed by the gracious manner in which @Riteishdpointed out my mistake. Thank you Riteish, that one tweet of yours carried many valuable lessons,” she added in another tweet.
As per a purportedly “fake” document dated February 2, 2019 from Latur floating around in the social media, Amit Deshmukh and Riteish Deshmukh had allegedly availed a huge farm loan of around Rs 4.75 crore and also reportedly applied to the Government for its waiver.
The indication of the document being a fake one can be seen from the fact that it bears hand-written noting that Deshmukhs allegedly owed farm loan amounting to
Rs 4,70,64,195 and it carries another remark— all penned with a yellow marker-pen: “Advise, how to waive off the loan”. In a detailed clarification, Congress MLA Amit Deshmukh said: “This kind of messages have been floating around in social media since the run-up to the Lok Sabha. We had then issued a clarification. The messages once again resurfaced during the State Assembly elections held in October”.
“We have a reason to believe that some vested interests are behind this mischief. We are lodging a police complaint now to thoroughly investigate the entire matter and arrest those peddling these fake messages in social media,” Amit said.
To substantiate the the document circulating in the social media was “fake”, Amit came out with the latest copy of a genuine document received from the local revenue department on November 29, 2019 which has no figures of any alleged outstanding loan due from Deshmukhs nor does it make a mention that they had sought a loan waiver.
In normal course, Deshmukhs — being the land-holding farmers — are not eligible for are not eligible for benefits under the State Government’s loan waiver scheme, a fact that the Devendra Fadnavis Government had made it known it announced the
Rs 34,022 crore loan waiver scheme “Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Krishi Samman Yojana” on June 4 2017.
Deshmukhs believe that their political rivals might have been behind the whole thing. “If the fake document has resurfaced again in the social media, Amit Deshmukh’s rivals may be trying to deny him ministerial berth in the Uddhav Thackeray Government.
This is because he was a Minister for a brief time in the earlier Congress-NCP alliance government and is now a ministerial aspirant,” a Congress leader close to the Deshmukh family said.