MUMBAI: Maharashtra leader of Opposition Ajit Pawar met Chief Minister of the state Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis at Sahyadri guest house here on Wednesday.
Though the stated objective of the meeting was to discuss the issue of farmers affected by drought, the recent political background gives it more prominence as far as power politics is concerned.
Recently NCP chief Sharad Pawar and its second in command Ajit Pawar made statements that seemed to favour the BJP. Sharath Pawar’s comment on Adani row got the most media attention.
While congress leader Rahul Gandhi constantly made allegations against businessman Gautam Adani and his business conglomerate, Sharad Pawar said, in a television interview, that Adani group seemed “targeted” in the Hindenburg report that alleged Adani enterprise of round-tripping of funds through offshore shell companies.
Sharad Pawar also disapproved of the adamant stand of the congress and some other opposition parties in demanding a JPC to investigate the Adani Hindenburg issue saying that “If Supreme Court investigates the matter, where there is no influence, there is a better chance of the truth coming out. And once the SC announced a committee for probing the matter, there was no need of JPC (probe).”
ED not naming Ajit Pawar and his wife in its Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank(MSCB) scam chargesheet also caused some political speculations and reactions. In the MSCB scam case, ED had attached a property owned by a company in which Ajit Pawar and his wife are majority shareholders.
Commenting on this ED’s omission of the names of Ajit Pawar and his wife in the charge sheet Shivsena Udhav Thackeray faction leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday said,” It clearly means that you (BJP) misused ED and CBI. You started an investigation, harrassed the Pawar family and their relatives and raided their premises. Now you don’t find anything against them to name them in the chargesheet. It’s clear that ED and CBI were misused in this case too.” (ANI).