"(Uddhav) Government Would Have Fallen 2 Years Ago Had I...": Ex-Minister

Nationalist Congress Party leader and former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, who spent 13 months in jail in connection with money laundering and corruption cases before getting bail, on Sunday claimed he was made an offer that would have seen the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi dispensation much earlier.

Mr Deshmukh, who was arrested in November 2021 and was released on December 28 last year on bail, was speaking at the state-level Conference of Collective Forest Rights attended by gram sabhas and NGOs working in the field of river and forest conservation in Sewagram in Wardha.

"I was made an offer while in jail, which I refused. If I had compromised (accepted the offer), the Maha Vikas Aghadi government would have fallen two-and-half years ago. But I believe in justice, so waited to be released," he claimed.

The MVA government of Uddhav Thackeray fell in June last year after several Shiv Sena MLAs rebelled under Eknath Shinde, who went on to become chief minister with the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

"The 40 MLAs of Shiv Sena left the original party and formed government with BJP as they were threatened with action by the Enforcement Directorate. I was put in jail for 14 months under bogus accusations. However, I never gave up," Mr Deshmukh claimed. 

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