Senior NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal, who has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case, on Saturday deposed before a metropolitan magistrate’s court in a 20-year-old rioting case where his home and office were allegedly vandalised by a group of men belonging to the Shiv Sena. Bhujbal had filed a defamation case in 1997 against Sena supremo late Bal Thackeray. Bhujbal, a witness in the case, deposed before judge R K Deshpande. He told the court that he no longer wishes to pursue the case as it is 20 years old. “I don’t remember the details of this case. It is too old for me to recollect,” he told the court. He added that he has no ill feelings against the political workers who vandalised his property and that he wished to forget it. He said he had withdrawn the case a while ago considering Bal Thackeray’s old age and frail health at that time. “I have no grudges or complaints against them,” he said. The defamation case was prompted by a report carried in Sena mouthpiece Saamana, six years after Bhujbal left the party. The article, based on an affidavit by one Rajendra Agarwal, held Bhujbal responsible for the defacing of a statue of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in Ghatkopar. Sainiks had allegedly vandalised Bhujbal’s home and office after he filed the defamation case.
