New Delhi: Following the arrest of Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik by Enforcement Directorate, the Maha Vikas Aghadi on Wednesday accused BJP-led NDA of misusing central agencies like CBI, ED, IT and NIA to target political opponents.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar has extended support to Malik and said claimed that Malik is being troubled because he spoke against the Union government.
Pawar said, "Which case have they dug up? It is simple. They take the name of Dawood, especially if there is a Muslim activist (against whom a case is dug up) There is no relation (between the activist concerned and underworld), but it is done."
Pawar emphasised that he also was "targeted similarly" in the mid-90s when he was the chief minister of Maharashtra and an atmosphere was created against him.
"Twenty-five years have passed since then. Similarly, names (of underworld) are being taken to defame people, trouble them and misuse the power people who take positions against the Centre or the misuse of probe agencies are being troubled and this is what has happened here," he said.
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NCP spokesperson Clyde Crasto affirmed that the activity against Malik was only a strain strategies to silence his voice.
"He was exposing the wrongdoings of some people as a Chief Spokesperson of a political party. Voices of truth cannot be silenced," Crasto tweeted.
NCP workers held a protest near the party's headquarters, situated near the ED's office in south Mumbai. The workers shouted slogans slamming the BJP-led government and the ED.
NCP's Lok Sabha member Supriya Sule said Maharashtra has never knelt before the Center and it won't ever will.
She said tragically the Center was involving its apparatus against the BJP's political opponents in a "suppressive" way.
Sule, who is the little girl of NCP boss Sharad Pawar, asserted the ED's notification is given distinctly to resistance pioneers.
"Once you quit your own party and join them, then the notice disappears or goes into a shredder. We should know which shredder is this," she said sarcastically without taking any name.
After his arrest, ED officials took Nawab Malik to JJ Hospital in Mumbai for a medical checkup.
(With agency inputs)