Nagpur: Except for the Devendra Fadnavis-led government during 2014-19, Anil Deshmukh has managed to find a berth in the Maharashtra ministry irrespective of which party came to power in the last over two decades. However, the journey of Anil Deshmukh seems to have now hit a roadblock. He quit Monday the Uddhav Thackeray-led ministry. It came after the Bombay High Court ordered a CBI probe into the allegations of extortion against him. The allegations have been made by former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh.
Deshmukh (70) hails from Wadvihira village near Katol in Nagpur district. He began as an independent MLA in 1995, extending support to the then Shiv Sena-led government – in which BJP was a partner. He was then made a minister of state.
In 1999, Deshmukh broke off his ties with the Sena-BJP government and joined the newly-formed Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). He won from Katol Assembly seat. He was inducted in the Congress-NCP ministry as a cabinet minister in 2001. However, he was dropped during a cabinet reshuffle. He then rejoined the ministry in 2009 and held charge of food, civil supplies and consumer protection.
Deshmukh lost the 2014 Assembly elections to his nephew but regained the Katol seat in 2019. He recently scored a self-goal in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly while attacking the BJP.
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Deshmukh pointed to the alleged suicide of Lok Sabha member Mohan Delkar and also that of an IAS official ‘from Madhya Pradesh’ in Maharashtra. He claimed that both felt they would only get justice in Maharashtra and not in their home states that are ruled by the BJP.
Leader of the Opposition, Devendra Fadnavis immediately pointed out that the IAS officer, whom Deshmukh had referred to, hailed from Congress-ruled Chattisgarh. An embarrassed Deshmukh had to set the record straight in the House.
Singh is not the first bureaucrat to attack him. In April 2020, he was criticised by a retired IAS officer and chairman of the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission Anand Kulkarni. He threatened to ‘expose’ Deshmukh over alleged corruption in the allotment of molasses and transfers of excise officials.