Mumbai: Nine Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders were sworn in as Cabinet ministers in Maharashtra’s Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government Sunday. Of these, at least three — Ajit Pawar, Chhagan Bhujbal and Hasan Mushrif — are facing a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in cases linked to money laundering.
Addressing the media in Pune, NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar said, “Only those accused by (PM) Modi (of corruption) took oath (today).”
Earlier in the day, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut too alleged that those who joined the Shinde-Fadnavis government were afraid of being sent to jail.
Reacting to the developments, Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh wrote on Twitter that the “the BJP’s Washing Machine has resumed its operations”.
Clearly the BJP's Washing Machine has resumed its operations. A number of new entrants into the BJP-led alliance in Maharashtra today had been facing serious corruption charges with ED, CBI and Income Tax authorities after them. Now they have all got a clean chit.
The Congress…
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) July 2, 2023
Of the new inductees, Ajit Pawar, now deputy chief minister along with Fadnavis, faces multiple cases including a probe by Maharashtra Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EoW) into alleged irregularities in loans sanctioned by Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank.
Soon after the EoW launched a probe into the charges, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) also filed a case in connection with the alleged scam.
However, citing lack of evidence, the EOW filed a closure report before a special court in September 2020.
With Eknath Shinde’s rebellion in 2022 which brought down the MVA government, the EOW initiated the probe again in October the same year but no chargesheet had been filed yet.
The ED filed a chargesheet in April this year but Pawar’s name does not appear in it as an accused though he hasn’t been given a clean chit either.
Another case against Ajit Pawar dates back to when he was the water resources minister in the Congress-NCP government (2008-2014) and chairman of the Vidarbha Irrigation Development Scheme.
The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) began investigating allegations of irregularities in allotment of irritation projects. However, a day after Pawar extended support to BJP’s Fadnavis in the aftermath of the 2019 assembly elections, the ACB submitted a report in the Bombay High Court, giving him a clean chit. While the report is yet to be accepted by the high court, BJP leaders have been demanding a re-investigation into the matter.
Apart from Pawar, NCP leaders Hassan Mushrif and Chhagan Bhujbal have also faced graft allegations while Dhananjay Munde had a sexual harassment complaint against him. The only woman minister now, Aditi Tatkare may have steered clear of controversy, but her father, Sunil Tatkare’s name had come up in the alleged irritation scam.
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‘Motivated conspiracy’
Hasan Mushrif, NCP leader from Kolhapur, also had a brush with investigating agencies not too long ago.
In March this year, the ED searched his residence in Mumbai in connection with alleged irregularities in the functioning of Sar Senapati Santaji Ghorpade Sugar Factory Ltd and firms linked to his family. He had then called it a “deliberate attempt” to implicate him.
Mushrif sought a pre-arrest bail and in his application, claimed that he was summoned for questioning — ‘despite lack of any incriminating material against him’ — many times as predicted by BJP leader and former MP Kirit Somaiya in tweets and press conferences.
The ED investigation was “nothing but the result of a motivated conspiracy, indicating clear mala fides so as to negatively affect the ever-rising political career of the applicant,” Mushrif claimed in the application.
But his anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the special court in April. Following that, he approached the Bombay High Court which last week extended the protection from arrest granted to him till 11 July.
Another prominent NCP leader who joined the Shinde-Fadnavis government was Chhagan Bhujbal.
The ACB had filed a case in 2015 against Bhujbal and 16 others in the Bombay High Court over alleged irregularities in awarding of contracts of over Rs 100 crore for three projects when Bhujbal was the state PWD minister in 2006.
The case dates back to 2005 when the state government issued a contract for the construction of a new Maharashtra Sadan building in Delhi, allegedly without inviting tenders, to K.S. Chamankar Enterprises. The public private partnership contract — which also included the construction of a new Regional Transport Office building in Andheri and a state guest house in Malabar Hill — fell within Bhujbal’s ambit.
The case led to Bhujbal being in jail for two years. He still faces criminal charges for alleged irregularities in the construction of a library in Kalina and offences the ED has alleged based on ACB cases.
Aditi Tatkare, another new minister in the Shinde-Fadnavis government, is also not new to controversy with her own father, Sunil Tatkare, embroiled in the multi-crore irrigation scam along with Ajit Pawar. The ACB had named him in the charge sheet but not as an accused.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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