After the Enforcement Directorate (ED) named him as an accused in the alleged Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) scam, NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar on Saturday claimed he has not done anything wrong and that he was being targeted with political motives.
Pawar said he was being singled out despite 97 others being named in the FIR, and added that since the matter is now in the court, he will fight out the case legally and win it.
The ED named Pawar, who represents the Karjat-Jamkhed assembly constituency in Ahilyanagar district, as an accused in the chargesheet, submitted in a special court in Mumbai recently, in the alleged MSCB scam.
The MSCB money laundering case stems from an August 2019 FIR of the Mumbai police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW), alleging fraudulent sale of SSKs (Sahakari Sakhar Kharkhana or cooperative sugar mills) by the then officers and directors of the MSCB at throwaway prices to their relatives/private persons without following the due procedure.
The Kannad SSK in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar was purchased by Baramati Agro Ltd, which is a company of Pawar.
The probe agency has alleged that MSCB, in order to recover an outstanding loan of Rs 80.56 crore of Kannad SSK Limited took possession of all its assets on July 13, 2009 under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest (SARFAESI) Act.
The MSCB then conducted an auction on August 30, 2012 of Kannad SSK by fixing a "very low" reserve price based on a questionable valuation report. Apart from Baramati Agro, two other parties entered the bidding process. The bidder with the highest bid was technically disqualified on flimsy grounds, whereas the other bidder was already a close business associate of Baramati Agro with no financial capacity or experience of running a sugar unit, the ED said.
Talking to reporters here, Pawar said, "When the ED registered the FIR, it named 97 individuals, including some political leaders. My name was not there. Before Baramati Agro purchased the sugar mill, the unit was under an administrator's control as there was no properly elected board of directors. It was the administrator who floated the tender, which Baramati Agro later secured through due process." During the probe, the ED kept all 97 people aside and started a probe against him, he added.
"In 2024, I was called to the ED office twice for questioning. I was questioned for 12 hours, I gave all the information to ED officers. They probed everything. They even visited the mill. Though the ED has taken the symbolic possession of the mill, it is still run by me. No farmer will face any issue," he said.
Of the 97 persons named in the FIR, many are now associated with the BJP, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena or Ajit Pawar's NCP, he claimed.
"There is an attempt to single me out and take action against me by ED. This looks political but I will fight this battle and win it," he said.
When asked why he believes he was targeted, Pawar said, "If you observe, I am the only one who is actively raising voice against the government in the current monsoon session of the legislature." Now that the chargesheet has been filed, the matter lies in the judiciary's hands, he said.
"We were waiting for the chargesheet to be filed. Now that it has been filed, we trust the judicial process and are confident of getting justice. I am absolutely convinced that I have done nothing wrong. I am not afraid. We are not among those who run away. We will fight this battle. We are Marathi people - we do not bow before Delhi," he asserted.
Calling it a battle of ideology, Pawar said, "Others may have run away, but I will stand and fight till the end."
Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.
