Won't bow down before Delhi 'throne': Pawar on ED action

Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Tuesday said he will 'voluntarily' visit the Enforcement Directorate office on September 27 in connection with a money laundering case filed against him by the agency in the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam.

The former Union minister put up a brave face, saying Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's Maharashtra will not ‘bow before the throne of Delhi’.

Pawar said he believes in the ‘Constitution of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’ and hence, will extend full co-operation to the ED and enjoy the probe agency's ‘hospitality.

He questioned the timing of the ED move, which comes days before the October 21 assembly polls.

Pawar is the second prominent politician from the state to be faced with the ED probe.

On August 22, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray was grilled by the agency in a money laundering case.

"I will be mostly out of Mumbai for the Assembly poll campaign. The ED officials shouldn't misunderstand that I am unavailable. I will go to the agency's office in Mumbai and give them whatever information they want," Pawar told reporters in Mumbai.

The ED filed the money laundering case against Pawar, his nephew Ajit Pawar and 70 others in the bank scam on the directions of the Bombay high court.

Pawar said he has not received any notice from the ED yet, but has come across the Press statement the agency has issued.

"Now that such a decision has been taken, it is my duty to cooperate with them. And therefore, I have decided to go there on my own," Pawar said.

"Maharashtra follows the ideology of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. We don't know bowing down before the Delhi takht (throne)," Pawar said.

Asked if he smelt vendetta politics behind the ED's action, the veteran leader noted the move comes when the polls are near and nominations are to be filed after two days.

"This development (ED action) has taken place at such a juncture. People understand what is there in this," the NCP patriarch said.

The Rajya Sabha MP reiterated he has never been associated with the bank either as a member or director.

"I have never been part of the bank's decision-making," Pawar said.

The leader also said that he was arrested only once in his life, in 1980 in Vidarbha's Amravati, after he led a protest march over an agrarian issue.

His nephew and former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said there was no scam and added the NCP president was nowhere related or involved in the matter.

"Is it possible there is Rs 25,000 crore scam -- as is being said -- in the bank whose deposits were between Rs 12,000 crore to Rs 13,000 crore?" he said.

Ajit Pawar said the bank was still making profit and questioned how come it was possible for the bank to register such a performance in the wake of the alleged scam.

"The matter should be probed," he said.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the ED registered the case based on Bombay high court's directive and said the step should not be ascribed to political vendetta.

"It would be wrong to attribute a political motive for the ED action and call it a political vendetta (by the Bharatiya Janata Party government)," Fadnavis told reporters.

The registration of the case against Pawar had NCP workers stage protests in parts of the poll-bound state, including in Aurangabad, Solapur, Beed, Thane, Nashik and his home turf Baramati.

The ED has filed a money laundering case against Pawar and others in connection with the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) scam case, officials said on Tuesday.

An Enforcement Case Information Report, equivalent to a police first information report, has been registered by the central agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, they said.

The case is based on a Mumbai Police FIR which had named former chairmen of the bank, Ajit Pawar and 70 former functionaries of the cooperative bank.