Hours after NCP supremo Sharad Pawar flashed a prescription report in his press conference to allege that Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh was recommended home quarantine, the discharge letter of the Alexis Hospital in Nagpur where Deshmukh was reportedly admitted said that he was allowed to travel and no quarantine was recommended for him.
The letter accessed by Republic TV punctures the claim made by NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, who said that Anil Deshmukh had gone under quarantine from February 15 to February 27 after being infected with the coronavirus. This claim was reaffirmed by Home Minister Anil Deshmukh himself, who claimed that he was home quarantined from February 15 to February 27 and did not step out of his home during that period.
“He is non infectious from COVID-19 point of view and is fit to fly considering his stable medical condition,” the hospital letter dated February 15 read.
Sharad Pawar claims Anil Deshmukh was under quarantine
After former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh alleged that tainted police officer Sachin Vaze had a meeting with Anil Deshmukh wherein he was asked by the Home Minister to extort money from business owners in Mumbai, NCP chief Sharad Pawar tried to fend off the allegations by stating that Deshmukh could not have met anybody during the said period as he was in the hospital from February 6-16 and was later under quarantine from February 16 to 27.
Addressing the media amid a political storm over former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh’s corruption allegations against the home minister, Pawar said, “Anil Deshmukh was in the hospital from February 5 to 15 and from February 15 to 27, he was in home isolation in Nagpur.”
Essentially, Sharad Pawar rubbished the allegations made by Param Bir Singh in his letter about the meeting between Anil Deshmukh and Sachin Vaze, claiming that the Maharashtra Home Minister was down with coronavirus during the period February 6 to 16.
However, Pawar was caught off-guard when the journalists told him that Deshmukh had attended a press conference during the said time period. During the press conference, when journalists and reporters informed the NCP chief that Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had organised a press conference on February 15 and that he was not in a hospital, a baffled Pawar clung to his statement, saying that Deshmukh was hospitalised during the said period. Pawar then went on to chastise the reporters for diverting the real issue by targeting the Home Minister.
Anil Deshmukh says he was under quarantine fro February 15 to 27 and stepped out for the first time on Feb 28
After Sharad Pawar came in the defence of Anil Deshmukh, it was the latter’s time to defend the former. After questions were raised of Sharad Pawar on the hospitalisation chronology he mentioned, Deshmukh came forward to issue a clarification. The Maharashtra Home Minister said that the press conference he had addressed on February 15 was from outside the hospital after he got discharged on February 15th.
“A few journalists were waiting for me at the hospital gate after I got discharged on 15th February. I was feeling low and weak so I sat on the chair there and responded to their questions. Then I went straight to my car and went home,” Deshmukh said.
“I was in home quarantine from February 15th to 27th. I stepped out of my house for the first time on February 28,” he said.
However, this lie was quickly called out after netizens dug up the Home Minister’s tweet from February 18 where he was seen attending last rites of one of his security guards who had died in an accident.
