In a major jolt to the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra, cabinet minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Nawab Malik who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged shady land deal case on Wednesday becomes the first sitting minister and a second senior NCP leader after the former Home Minister Anil Deshmukh was arrested by the central agency on November 2, 2021 in alleged corruption and money-laundering cases.
Malik is the first serving Cabinet Minister to be arrested in this manner, sending shockwaves in political circles.
Shortly after 3 p.m., the NCP leader was whisked off by the ED to a government hospital for a medical check-up at the Sir J.J. Hospital and he is likely to be produced before a designated Special PMLA Court later in the day.
As he was escorted out of the ED office by police and ED, a grinning Malik sporting a white kurta-pyjama, was seen raising a fist in the air, and declaring: "Jhukenge Nahin, Ladenge Aur Jeetenge" ("Will not succumb, Will fight and Win") to his supporters as he was made to sit in a vehicle.
An ED team had visited Malik's home around 5 a.m. and taken him away for questioning in the Kurla land deal allegedly having a mafia taint.
The ED had summoned teams of the CISF and Mumbai Police security for the arrest even as a large number of Nationalist Congress Party workers staged a noisy protest outside the agency's office since morning.
Who is Nawab Malik?
Born in 1959 in the small Dhuswa village of Utraula Tehsil, Balrampur district in eastern Uttar Pradesh, close to India-Nepal border, despite his name suggesting 'nobility', Malik was an ordinary village lad till the family migrated to Mumbai for better prospects in 1970.
Dhuswa folks say that his father Mohammed Islam Malik initially started a small business in 'chindi' (rags) in Dongri, south Mumbai, and later shifted to north-east suburban Kurla.
In Kurla, Malik helped his father launch a scrap buying-selling business - the reason why some people now snobbishly try to run him down as a 'kabadiwala'.
After dabbling in local social activities, he forayed into politics first with the 'Sanjay Vichar Manch' party launched by Maneka Gandhi - after the death of her husband Sanjay Gandhi - along with his close aides like Akbar 'Dumpy' Ahmed, Sanjay Singh, J.N. Mishra, Kalpnath Sonkar, etc.
Malik first contested Lok Sabha elections in 1984 against the Congress stalwart, the late Gurudas Kamat but barely got around 2,500 votes.
Later, he flirted with the Congress briefly before switching over to the Samajwadi Party (SP), won a bypoll to become an MLA and was promptely rewarded with a Minister of State position in the then Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance government in 1999.
Following political wrangles with the SP State President Abu Asim Azmi, Malik left and joined the NCP led by Sharad Pawar, and became a MoS and later a Cabinet Minister.
In 2005, he was targeted for alleged corruption by a social crusader Kisan Baburao alias Anna Hazare and had to quit the cabinet along with 4 other ministers
Though Malik vehemently rubbished all charges against him, he was plucky enough to launch a counter-campaign against Hazare and also continued to work for the NCP, slowly earning the confidence of the party top brass, including the Pawar clan.
In November 2019, when the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress Maha Vikas Aghadi took office, Malik catapulted to the cabinet but encountered a setback when his son-in-law Sameer Khan was nabbed by the NCB and finally released on bail after over 8 months.
His former colleagues including ex-ministers (on condition of anonymity) describe Nawab Malik as "a meticulous worker, who handles any issue studiously, a tad arrogant occasionally, a fierce 'family-man', a gutsy leader who dares to barge in where angels fear to tread, and has the gall to call a spade a spade", etc.
