(This story originally appeared in on Mar 15, 2016)

Fall from grace

There are many theories on how a political leader of Bhujbal's heft could have come to such a pass. Some of them are:

Plum portfolios

ED arrests Chhagan Bhujbal in money laundering case

Slush money belonging to Chhagan Bhujbal was transported to Kolkata in ambulances to evade detection and flowed back into the family's accounts with entities based out of the West Bengal capital buying shares of companies owned by the Bhujbals.As the Enforcement Directorate began questioning the former deputy chief minister at 11.30 am on Monday, officers said Bhujbal through the day would be confronted with "tons of data" on these suspicious transactions, including the names of the Kolkata based businesses that invested in his companies.By evening it was apparent that the ED did have "tons of data" on how the money flowed out of the state and then came back. For, Bhujbal was not only questioned non-stop through the day with only a few toilet and tea breaks, he was arrested at 10 pm.At the time of filing this report, Bhujbal was still being questioned at the agency's Ballard Pier office and the buzz was that the grilling may continue through the night. Sources said he would spend the night at the ED office and would be produced before a court in the morning.Bhujbal's arrest is a huge loss of face for somebody who has been one of the most prominent leaders on Maharshtra's political firmament for nearly 50 years now -- two-time Mumbai mayor, two-time deputy chief minister, and somebody who at some point or the other held almost all important portfolios in the state.His political position, though, has already seen a markdown. Just before his arrival at the ED office on Monday, a motley crowd of a hundred odd Nationalist Congress Party workers led by Mumbra MLA Jitendra Awhad held a protest outside the ED office. They called Bhujbal's questioning a political vendetta.Contrast this with January 2004. A day before Bhujbal was to appear before a Special Investigation Team appointed by the Bombay High Court in the Telgi fake stamps scam, the Nationalist Congress Party organised a massive morcha that jammed the Sir Pochkhanwala Road in Worli where the investigations team had its office. Eventually, the Telgi scam probe was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation and not even an FIR was filed against Bhujbal.Bhujbal, his son Pankaj, and nephew Sameer are being investigated for the Maharashtra Sadan scam, and the Kalina library construction scam. The ED is looking into the allegations of money laundering against the trio. Sameer, a former member of Parliament, is already in ED's custody, while son Pankaj has been questioned.Sameer, who is currently lodged at the Arthur Road jail, has turned out to be a difficult customer for ED. According to a senior ED officer, every time they threw a tough question at him, he would start scribbling 'Jai Swami Samarth' in a notebook and just refuse to answer.Bhujbal, though, had some help on Monday. He has been accompanied by a lawyer, and his accountant to the questioning. Sources said he is cooperating, though the officers were far from getting any critical information out of him when this newspaper managed to last establish contact with them.Political circles remained agog through the day about how Bhujbal has been left out to dry by his party. Sources said he called party chief Sharad Pawar in the morning and requested him to address a press conference decrying the summons from the ED as political vendetta. Pawar declined and deployed Awhad to do the needful.1. He fell out with Pawar a year ago.2. He is being made a scape-goat to protect Ajit Pawar, Sharad Pawar's nephew, who has serious cases of corruption pending against him.3. He is the new BJP-Shiv Sena government's show-piece anti-corruption project.4. Now that Sena shares power with the BJP in the state, Bhujbal must pay for arresting Sena chief Bal Thackeray in 2000. Bhujbal was then the home minister.The money that ED believes was ferried to Kolkata in ambulances allegedly was kickbacks received by the Bhujbals from contractors who were awarded the work to build Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi and the university library in Kalina. These contracts were awarded when Bhulbal was the Public Works Department minister, one of the juiciest portfolios, in the Congress-NCP government.The plum portfolios that fell into Bhujbal's lap - deputy chief minister with independent charge of home in 1999 to 2003, home minister from 2003 to 2008, deputy chief from 2008 to 2010, and PWD minister from 2010 to 2014 - were all evidence of his political heft. He was the NCP's OBC face.But for some years now the party has been grooming Awhad and Dhananjay Munde has the party's OBC leaders. Sources said Pawar knew of the bad times Bhujbal was sprinting towards and had readied a plan B. Pity Bhujbal himself did not see the writing on the wall.