The last of the old guard of the Congress party in Maharashtra, and an Indira Gandhi loyalist, former Maharashtra chief minister Abdul Rehman Antulay passed away in Mumbai on Tuesday morning. He was 85. Antulay was the first chief minister of the state to have to battle a prolonged court case following the cement scandal that led to his exit from the top post, simultaneously marking the decline of his political career in Maharashtra, although he later served as minister for minority affairs in UPA-1. The state declared a three-day mourning. The funeral will be held in his native district of Raigad Wednesday. Antulay, the state’s first Muslim chief minister, headed the government between June 9, 1980 and January 12, 1982. But in this short time span, he left his mark as a decision-maker whom bureaucrats feared. In his condolence message, Governor C Vidyasagar Rao said although Antulay’s tenure as chief minister was brief, he was admired for efficiency and administrative acumen. Known for his outspokenness, Antulay was a party loyalist who was handpicked by Indira Gandhi to lead Maharashtra. But he got embroiled in a controversy after the Bombay High Court ruled that he had illegally led builders in Mumbai to make donations to the India Gandhi Pratishthan trust, one of several trust funds he established, allegedly in exchange for extra cement than the quota allocated to them by the government. In a series of articles, The Indian Express exposed the cement scam, leading to a case being filed in the court and the court subsequently indicting him. Following this, Antulay was forced to quit as chief minister in January 1982, when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. Antulay fought a legal battle over this for more than a decade. He took up the matter in the Supreme Court and was acquitted due to lack of evidence. But by then his career in Maharashtra had waned. And he shifted to Delhi as a Lok Sabha MP. Calling the veteran Congressman a “thoughtful and aggressive leader”, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “Beginning his public life as a social worker, Antulay remained firm on his principles, and even took on the administration on occasions.” Antulay was born in Ambet village in Raigad district. After graduation from Bombay University, he studied Barrister-At-Law at Lincoln’s Inn, London. He was married to Nargis and has a son and a daughter. His son Mushtaq is a Congress leader. After the November 26, 2008 terror attack in Mumbai, he sparked a controversy, saying that the then ATS chief Hemant Karkare, who was killed in the attack, may have been targeted for his probe into the 2006 Malegaon blasts. Later, he told Parliament he had not been talking about who killed Karkare, but that Karkare may have been sent in the wrong direction. The Congress distanced itself from his statements.
