Sanjay Raut was once Mumbai’s top crime reporter: Dawood Ibrahim has been reprimanded, became editor at the age of 29

Enforcement Directorate has recovered Rs 11 lakh 50 thousand from Raut’s house and has been arrested in money laundering case.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut has been arrested in the money laundering case related to the Patra Chawl scam of more than one thousand crores. Before the arrest, three teams of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) also raided their three bases. Raut was detained from his Maitri bungalow and brought to the ED office and arrested after an 8-hour interrogation. Raut is a big name in Maharashtra politics today, but there was a time when he used to do crime reporting in Mumbai in the 80s. Sanjay Raut, who started his career with Lokprabha magazine, was considered an expert in underworld reporting. His reports on Dawood Ibrahim, Chhota Rajan and the underworld were widely discussed in Mumbai. Raut’s name grew in the world of reporting and he came in the eyes of Balasaheb Thackeray. Raut’s visits to Matoshree increased and the Shiv Sena chief offered only 29-year-old Raut to become the executive editor of Shiv Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamana’. Raut could not turn down the offer of the Shiv Sena chief and he has been its executive editor for the past 30 years. After Balasaheb’s departure, he came close to Uddhav Thackeray. The way Uddhav formed the government with Congress and NCP in 2019, he has been called the ‘think tank’ of Shiv Sena.

Dawood Ibrahim was reprimanded
It is said for Raut that despite being a crime reporter, he never went to the police post and never met the police officers regarding any news. Dawood used to be the initiator of the news of Raut, who did crime reporting. It is also discussed that Dawood Ibrahim used to come to Express Tower many times to give news to Sanjay Raut. Both used to sit and talk in the canteen here. This was many years before his name came up in the 1993 blasts. On 16 January 2020, at an event held in Pune, Sanjay Raut himself confessed that he had met Dawood Ibrahim. He had said, ‘I had seen Dawood Ibrahim, I have also spoken to him. I even reprimanded him once.

Sanjay Raut goes to great credit for taking Balasaheb’s ideas to the public.

Sanjay Raut became the voice of Balasaheb
After joining Saamana, Sanjay Raut made many big changes in the newspaper. Such things started appearing in the editorial, which were related to the ideology of Shiv Sena and gradually this newspaper became the voice of Balasaheb Thackeray. The editorial was written in the style of Bal Thackeray. Raut used to write editorials, but after reading it, people understood that Bal Thackeray was writing it. This experiment became very popular in Saamana and even today the editorial of the newspaper is considered to be the official version of Shiv Sena.

Sanjay Raut has been regarded as a link between Shiv Sena and other parties.

Bal Thackeray got entry in politics
After joining Saamana, Raut became very close to Balasaheb and gradually became a part of the internal politics of Shiv Sena. However, Raut, a student of B.Tech from Ambedkar College, was active in the student unit of Shiv Sena since his lifetime. Seeing his thinking and vision in politics, Bal Thackeray made him ‘Deputy Leader’ of Shiv Sena. After this the party grew and he reached the Rajya Sabha for the first time in 2004 on a Shiv Sena ticket. Here he was also the leader of Shiv Sena. Raut has also been a member of committees related to Parliamentary and Home Department. Between 2005 and 2009, Raut was also a member of the Consultancy Committee of the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Balasaheb Thackeray is also the one who brought Raut into politics. He is a Shiv Sena MP for four consecutive terms.

Raut’s big role in the construction of Mahavikas Aghadi
Raut is a Rajya Sabha MP from Shiv Sena for the second time in 2010, then in 2016 and now in 2022. Sanjay, who has been an MP for four consecutive terms, became active after the 2019 assembly elections. Political experts say that Sanjay Raut had a big hand in forming the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) i.e. joint government of Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP. Sanjay Raut was the only person in Shiv Sena, who had good penetration in almost every party in Maharashtra. He is considered very close to NCP Chief Sharad Pawar and this is the reason why Uddhav Thackeray had given the entire responsibility of MVA construction to Sanjay Raut. While Uddhav Thackeray was a CM, Raut continued to work as a link between the three parties.

Despite the rebellion in Shiv Sena, Raut continued to stand by Uddhav Thackeray.

Uddhav Thackeray did not leave even after the rebellion
Raut is considered very close to Matoshree i.e. Thackeray family. Even after the rebellion in Shiv Sena, Raut did not leave Uddhav Thackeray’s side and kept on his side. He kept his point vocally and kept trying to bring 40 MLAs who went with Shinde to his side. However, Shinde got the support of BJP and Uddhav Thackeray had to resign from the post of Chief Minister. Raut has constantly targeted his opponents by sharing poems and film dialogues on social media.