Mumbai: A day after the BJP released a video showing Anil Dekhmukh holding a press conference on February 15, the Maharashtra Home Minister on Tuesday said over past few days, false reports are doing rounds in media against him. Issuing a statement, he said that he was hospitalised from February 5 to 15 after testing COVID positive on February 5. However, he got discharged on February 15 and was home-quarantine for 10 days, and on February 15, he came to Mumbai via private plane.

“I stepped out of my home on February 28 for the first time for official work. I am sharing all this so that people are not misguided,” Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said in a statement.

The Maharashtra Home Minister said that he used to visit park late at night for Pranayama thereon as per doctor’s advice. “I also attended few virtual meetings in Nagpur hospital and later during home quarantine. Few officers visited me at home for briefing prior to Budget Session on March 1,” he added further.

Days after Mumbai top cop Param Bir Singh wrote the explosive letter against Maharashtra Home Minister, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday shared a video on Twitter showing Anil Dekhmukh holding a press conference on February 15. Notably, the video was shared at the same time when Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar held a briefing with the media and claimed that the allegations levelled on Anil Deshmukh are ‘baseless’.

“If you see the former Commissioner’s letter, he mentions that in mid-February he was informed by certain officers that they got such and such instructions from Home Minister. Deshmukh was admitted in hospital because of coronavirus between February 5-15”, the NCP patriarch told reporters.

In the meantime, BJP leader Amit Malviya also shared a tweet by state home minister and NCP leader Anil Deshmukh on February 15 where he can be seen addressing a press meet.

“Sharad Pawar claims Anil Deshmukh was in hospital from 5-15 Feb and in quarantine from 16-27 Feb. But Anil Deshmukh was holding a press conference on 15 Feb…How lies fall flat,” Malviya wrote on Twitter.

After that the video was again retweeted by former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, countering Pawar’s statement that Deshmukh was “in home quarantine”.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar said on Monday said that the corruption allegations made by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh against Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh pertain to a period when the latter was hospitalised and hence the question of his resignation does not arise.

In his eight-page letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Singh on Saturday claimed Deshmukh wanted police officers to collect Rs 100 crore monthly from bars and hotels. Singh had also alleged in the letter that Deshmukh had called Mumbai police API Sachin Waze around mid-February at the ministers official residence and told him to collect Rs 100 crore a month.

Pawar also added that Deshmukh was admitted to a Nagpur hospital between February 5 and February 15 after testing positive for COVID-19 and was being analysed from February 15 to February 27.