Incarcerated Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP Sanjay Raut has said that though there was a lot of pressure on him to “betray” his party, he did not succumb to it, but preferred to go to jail on the basis of “fake” and “trumped up” charges of money laundering made against him.
In a letter – written to his mother Savita R. Raut on August 8 when he was sitting outside a courtroom after he got his judicial custody – that was shared on his Twitter handle, Raut wrote: “Even I am fighting against injustice, I will never bow before the enemies of Shiv Sena, meaning Maharashtra, that’s why I must remain away from you… Haven’t I learnt this from you?”
“Uddhav Thackeray is my dearest friend and my ‘Senapati’ (commander). The party is facing a major crisis… If I betray him at such a critical juncture, what face will I show to Balasaheb…?,” Raut asked.
Raut, the executive editor of Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana', said: “This is no time to lose morale, or surrender, or fear as to how I would step outside to be among the people"
Raut, who is currently in judicial custody and whose bail plea will before a court on October 17, said that as taught by his mother “never go on the knees due to the fear of the ED, IT, etc, which had sent waves of panic among many MPs, MLAs forcing them to abandon their respective parties.
“I don’t want my name in the list of ‘cheats’… Someone has to remain firm… I have the courage, given to me by Balasaheb and You,” he wrote to his mother.
Raut said that freedom fighters Lokmanya Tilak and Vinayak Domadar Savarkar had to face similar treatment.
"Like you, the Shiv Sena is also my mother. I had pressure to betray my mother (the party). There were threats not to speak against the government as it will prove costly. I did not pay heed to the threat which is why I am away from you,” Raut stated in his letter tweeted on Wednesday.
Raut, who was detained by the ED on July 31 after a raid on his Bhandup residence and his questioning that lasted for more than nine hours, was formally placed under by the investigating agency at 12.05 am on August 1 under sub-section (1) of section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. The PMLA court had earlier remanded Raut to ED custody till August 4.
The ED is investigating the alleged irregularities in a money laundering case pertaining to the redevelopment of Patra Chawl by Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd a subsidiary of Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL).