Mumbai: A letter to the Union Home Minister now sits at the centre of a Maharashtra row that began with an audio clip. Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut wrote to Amit Shah on Monday seeking an Enforcement Directorate probe into allegations that ₹500 crore was paid to Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange.
Jarange released the clip last week. Raut, in his letter, said the recording purportedly contains a conversation in which it is alleged that ₹500 crore was routed to Jarange through Shrikant Shinde, Shiv Sena MP and son of Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Jarange has denied receiving any money. He has said a conspiracy was hatched against him because he was raising issues concerning farmers and ordinary citizens. Eknath Shinde and Shrikant Shinde have both rejected the allegations.
Raut called the allegations "extremely serious" and framed his demand as four questions. "Who gave ₹500 crore to whom, and if this money did not reach Jarange Patil, where did it disappear? From where did such a huge sum of money come, and where did it go?" he wrote. He asked Shah to order both the Maharashtra Police and the ED to investigate and to "bring out the facts before the people of Maharashtra and the country".
Describing it as a potential money-laundering case, Raut reached for a comparison. He cited the March 2021 allegations made by then Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh against Anil Deshmukh, then the state's Home Minister, that he had been asked to collect ₹100 crore a month. Raut said those allegations were not substantiated at the time, yet the ED pursued the case and arrested Deshmukh. He argued that the Jarange matter was more serious because, by his account, an audio clip had been placed on record as evidence and the sum involved was larger.
The politics around the clip has become its own story. On Saturday, the BJP alleged that Raut had created a fake audio clip using artificial intelligence to push Congress MP Rahul Gandhi's agenda and to create divisions among the ruling allies. Raut then claimed that a BJP MLC had leaked the clip, which he attributed to what he called cut-throat competition inside the party.
Jarange has urged Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to get to the bottom of the controversy. He has repeated that he is being targeted as part of a conspiracy and alleged that party funds were used in an attempt to defame him and weaken the Maratha quota agitation.