Nawab Malik, frontline firefighter of Maha Vikas Aghadi

Right from starting off as a “bhangarwalla” to earning the sobriquet of being the “James Bond” of Maharashtra politics, Nawab Malik has left a mark in everything he did, and everywhere he went.

The 62-year-old Malik is a close aide of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder-president Sharad Pawar and the minority affairs minister in the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.

Malik is fluent in Hindi, Marathi and English. His skills of articulation ensured the chief spokesperson's position for him in the NCP and 24x7 direct access to Pawar Saheb.

As a spokesperson, he is articulate, diplomatic and has the skill to fire salvos and push political rivals to the corner.

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For the NCP as well as the MVA dispensation, he has emerged as the chief gunner taking on the opposition BJP.

With the recent series of verbal attacks on BJP leadership including former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and his aides, Malik has exposed himself - and the saffron party is not going to take things lying down.

The leaders of Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress are under the vigil of agencies like NIA, CBI, IT, ED and NCB.

“I am ready,” says Malik, promising to carry out more exposes and perhaps a major firework display during the winter session of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in Nagpur next month. “I know what is happening in the NCB, how innocent people are being targeted, how money is being extorted from Bollywood personalities… someone will have to take the mantle and clean it up,” he adds.

Malik was rattled when in January, his son-in-law Sameer Khan was arrested by NCB’s high-profile Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede.

Malik, with an excellent network in the higher levels of bureaucracy to top police brass and downwards, started off digging up dirt on Wankhede.

Khan was arrested on January 13 and granted bail on September 27. While he was about to expose the NCB, the October 2-3 raid on Cordelia cruise ship in the Mumbai International Cruise Terminal happened in which 20 people were arrested including Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan.

Since then Malik has been firing salvos — presumably with sanction from Pawar and Thackeray — and has rattled the NCB as well as the state BJP with his allegations.

He took on Sameer Wankhede, the NCB officer, claiming that he was a Muslim and has fraudulently claimed benefit of SC category and entered the IRS in 2008, dug out details of his father’s alleged conversion, the sleuth’s first marriage and so on — a rather unprecedented step in Maharashtra politics.

Born on June 20, 1959, in Dhuswa in Uttar Pradesh, Malik migrated to Mumbai in 1970 and enrolled in the Burhani College. His father started a scrap business in Kurla.

When the Wankhede family targeted him for his bhangarwala origins, Malik shot back metaphorically: “Yes... I am a bhangarwala... I was a bhangarwala before becoming a politician. My family is in bhangar business and I am proud of it... they perhaps do not know what a bhangarwala does... they remove the scrap. I will also do that, I will take out each and every nut and bolt, melt it in the foundry and clean the mess."

In his younger days, Malik started social work and slowly got into politics - with a big stint in Samajwadi Party and now in the NCP.

Malik first contested Lok Sabha elections in 1984 against the Congress stalwart, the late Gurudas Kamat but barely got around 2,500 votes.

A five-time MLA, he has earlier represented Nehru Nagar and now Anushakti Nagar.

He fell out with SP Maharashtra unit chief Abu Asim Azmi and immediately came under Pawar’s tutelage. He became an integral part of the erstwhile Democratic Front (DF) dispensation.

During his stint as housing minister in the DF government, veteran Gandhian and anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare levelled charges of corruption on him because of which he had to resign.

When the MVA government was being shaped, Malik played a crucial role and once again got a chance to be a minister in the new tri-party dispensation.

Malik’s task is cut out and he is in full throttle. "Over the past few months, Malik has collected reams and reams of documents, photos and videos using his own network. It would not be an easy task to take on Malik," a political observer said, adding that he now has dossiers on many people which would be used in the times to come.

His name may be “Nawab”, but he has his eyes open and ears to the ground.

For the NCP as well as the MVA dispensation, he has emerged as the chief gunner taking on the opposition BJP

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