Sanjay Raut, 60, is a
member of Parliament representing the Shiv Sena in the Rajya Sabha. Raut is
also the editor of the Shiv Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamana’. On Sunday, officials of
the Enforcement Directorate, India’s top financial crime-tracking sleuths, reached
Sanjay Raut’s home. Raut is said to have skipped ED summons twice, which made
ED officials land up at his home. The Shiv Sena leader has, however, described
the summons as political vendetta.

Sanjay Raut is one of
those few leaders in the Shiv Sena who stood by Uddhav Thackeray during the
recent Maharashtra crisis which led to Uddhav Thackeray losing the chief
minister’s seat and the Shiv Sena breaking into two factions, one led by Eknath
Shinde.

Also Read | Why India’s Enforcement Directorate stays mired in political controversy?

Sanjay Raut has been
Shiv Sena’s spokesperson at the national level for years. It is his searing
criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that
led to Shiv Sena breaking out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). It was
Sanjay Raut who wrote the screenplay for Thackeray, the film about Shiv Sena founder
Balasaheb Thackeray where Nawazuddin Siddique played the late Marathi leader.

Born on November 15,
1961, Sanjay Raut hails from Maharashtra’s Alibag. Raut, executive editor of
Saamana, came into prominence owing to the several controversies surrounding
him. When Balasaheb Thackeray died on November 17, 2012, the Maharashtra police
arrested two girls who posted and liked a comment on Facebook about Mumbai
shutting down after Balasaheb’s death.

Also Read | Shiv Sena expects Murmu to uphold constitutional values, says Sanjay Raut

Sanjay Raut made
headlines in 2015 when he said the right to vote should be taken away from
Muslims residing in India, citing Bal Thackeray. He said this needed to be done
to ensure Muslims don’t get “used” in vote-bank politics. “Till Muslims are
used as vote-banks, they have no future. This is why Bal Thackeray had demanded
that Muslims’ voting rights be taken away,” he had said, according to his Wikipedia
page.