Amid allegations of corruption levelled against him by former Mumbai top cop, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Tuesday released videos on Twitter to defend himself and claimed that attempts are being made to mislead the people by dissemination of incorrect information about him.
The videos were posted in wake of the growing demand for his removal after Param Bir Singh in a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray claimed that the Home Minister wanted police officers to collect Rs 100 crore monthly from bars and hotels.
Param Bir Singh alleged that Anil Deshmukh had called Mumbai police API Sachin Waze around mid-February at the ministers official residence and told him to collect Rs 100 crore a month.
Day after NCP chief Sharad Pawar refuted the allegations and said the claims pertain to a period when Anil Deshmukh was hospitalised, the Maharashtra Home Minister on Tuesday posted two videos, detailing his activities during quarantine.
Anil Deshmukh said he was admitted to a Nagpur hospital between February 5 and February 15 after testing positive for Covid-19 and was being analysed from February 15 to February 27, Pawar had said during the media briefing on Monday.
Insisting that fake news was being propagated against him, Anil Deshmukh in another video said that from February 5 to 15, he was admitted to a hospital in Nagpur after he tested positive for Covid-19. Following his hospital stay, he came to Mumbai on a charter flight.
“There has been much misinformation about me being propagated in the electronic and print media for the last few days. You all know that during the last year amid the Covid-19 situation, I went around the state and met the policemen and encouraged them. I tested positive for Covid-19 on February 5. I was hospitalised from February 5 to 15,” Anil Deshmukh said in the video.
“After being discharged from the hospital on February 15, the doctor’s advised me to stay in home quarantine for 10 days. So on February 15 itself, I arrived in Mumbai by private plane.
During home quarantine, with my doctors advice, I used to do pranayama in the park every night, Deshmukh said, and added that he attended meetings via video-conferencing when he was in quarantine.
He added officials started visiting him for briefings from March 1 once the assembly session started.
Many are trying to give a false impression to people and thats why I am giving this information, Anil Deshmukh said in the video.
The clarification videos posted by Anil Deshmukh came after the BJP claimed that there was a mismatch in dates and claimed that Maharashtra Home Minister had held a “press conference” on February 15 which contradicted NCP chief Sharad Pawar”s assertion that he was hospitalised then.
