Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar expressed on Saturday his belief that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was being used as a tool to terrorise and silence political opponents. Pawar made these remarks in response to a query about his grandnephew and party MLA Rohit Pawar receiving summons from the ED. Rohit Pawar is required to appear before the agency on January 24 for questioning in connection with its money laundering investigation into the alleged Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) scam.
The MSCB case originated from an FIR filed by the Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing in August 2019. In the ongoing probe, the ED conducted raids on Baramati Agro, a company owned by the Karjat-Jamkhed MLA, and affiliated entities in Pune, Aurangabad, and other locations on January 5.
Hitting out at the Centre, Sharad Pawar said, The ED is being used to silence political opponents through misuse of power and to terrorise them. We have to go to the people to defeat such tendencies. When questioned about seat-sharing arrangements for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, scheduled for the first half of this year, the former Union minister revealed that discussions are currently in progress. Efforts are being made to engage in talks with the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi led by Prakash Ambedkar, the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), and the Communist parties with the aim of incorporating them into the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance. A final decision will be taken soon. A committee of all three MVA partners is working on the seat sharing formula, he told reporters.