ED working to bring down MVA govt: Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut

The Enforcement Directorate was pressuring people to give statements against him, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut has alleged in a letter to Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu. ED was unlawfully restraining and threatening people with arrest or confiscation of property under PMLA if they didn't give statements against him, Raut alleged in a 4-page letter on Tuesday.

ED was probing decades' old transactions under PMLA, he said. "ED and other agencies personnel tasked with protecting revenue and secure proceeds of crime are reduced to puppets of their political masters. Some ED and other agencies personnel confessed to the very people they summoned that they were asked by bosses to fix me," Raut alleged. The ED raids on him followed his refusal to be part of a plot to bring down the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, he alleged. Two senior leaders and two senior ministers of the MVA government, besides him, could be sent to jail under PMLA to bring down the MVA govt and ensure a midterm poll in the state, he said.

Opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis, campaigning in Goa, rubbished Raut's allegations.