india

Updated: Sep 28, 2019 00:41 IST

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar resigned as a member of the Maharashtra assembly on Friday evening ahead of state elections due less than a month away, as he confronts a money-laundering probe in connection with financial irregularities to the tune of Rs.25,000 crore at Maharashtra State Cooperative (MSC) Bank, in which he is a director.

Pawar, a nephew of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, who has also been named in the money-laundering case by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), went incommunicado after submitting his resignation. Sharad Pawar said Ajit Pawar had resigned because he was upset that he (Sharad Pawar) had been dragged into the case

“He (Ajit) didn’t inform me before or after submitting his resignation. He also could not be contacted as well. I came to know from his son that Ajit was upset as ED included my name in the investigation and is of the belief that it is going on because of him. He was so upset that he is thinking of retiring from politics and planning to do some farming business. He has also suggested to his son to leave politics as its level has gone down too low,” Pawar said in Pune.

The NCP chief denied rumours of a rift between him and Ajit Pawar, insisting that he was head of the family and his word was final.

“There is nothing like a rift in the family. Being the head of the family, all the decisions taken by me are respected by all. We all are together and will continue to remain together,” Pawar told reporters after visiting areas hit by a cloudburst that triggered flooding in Pune this week .

Ajit Pawar, a six-term MLA from Baramati assembly constituency, submitted his resignation to speaker Haribhau Bagade on Friday evening before going incommunicado; the resignation was accepted by the latter.

Sharad Pawar had recently taken exception to an announcement by his nephew that the NCP would now display saffron flags along with its tricolour at party rallies. Pawar said the decision to use saffron flags was taken by Ajit Pawar in his personal capacity and not by the party.

Before the Lok Sabha elections, Ajit Pawar had insisted on his son Parth contesting the Maval seat in Pune. Sharad Pawar, who was not in favour of Parth fighting the election, announced then that he was withdrawing from the poll fray himself because he did not want three people from the same family seeking election to Parliament. Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule won election from Baramati; Parth Pawar lost.

Parth Pawar said father was hurt by the kind of politics being waged in the state, but said the latter was not quitting politics. “He advised me to avoid politics,”he told journalists in Pune.

The ED case pertains to loans provided by MSC Bank — the apex body for all district central cooperative (DCC) banks in the state — to cooperative sugar factories, spinning mills and other processing units. The case is that the loans were given without taking into considering the financial conditions of the cooperative units.

Sharad Pawar has clarified that he was never a director of any of the banks and questioned the timing of the action ahead of the assembly polls in the state. On Friday, he slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government and said, “The case is a clear example {of efforts} to defame opposition leaders in front of the people before elections.”