Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Mumbai: Amid mounting political pressure and criticism in the wake of the memoirs by former IPS officer Meeran Chadha Borwankar, Deputy Chief Minister and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar on Tuesday denied he had anything to do with the auction of land belonging to the police department.
The issue has come as a major embarrassment to the Eknath Shinde-led BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP government.
“I have nothing to do with it…if you want to conduct a probe, please go ahead,” said Ajit Pawar, the nephew of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar.
Borwankar, an officer of the 1981 batch of the IPS, had served several important posts including Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) in Mumbai, Commissioner of Police in Pune, Additional Director General of Police (Prisons) and Director General of Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D).
Her memoir ‘Madam Commissioner: The Extraordinary Life of an Indian Police Chief' has sparked off a controversy for a reference to a certain “Dada” - a moniker attached to Ajit Pawar.
She referred to the auction of three acres of land in Pune's Yerwada in 2010, that belonged to the police department. The land was sold to a bidder who was later accused in the 2G scam by the CBI.
In 2010, the Congress-NCP Democratic Front government was in power and Ajit Pawar was then the guardian minister of Pune.
Borwankar had written a "very strong" letter to the Home Department headed by late NCP leader RR Patil, seeking a nullification of the entire deal.
The Maharashtra Congress has sought a probe. “The former Pune police chief has accused Ajit Pawar of exerting pressure to auction the land,” state Congress chief Nana Patole said and demanded a probe by a High Court judge and that Pawar be relinquished from his post to facilitate the investigations. “We will raise the issue in the winter session of the Maharashtra legislature,” he said.
"I'm curious about why this is emerging now. Is it an attempt to diminish the significance of Ajit Pawar at this point? This could be one possible perspective, but we're not entirely sure about the full details," remarked Rohit Pawar, the NCP MLA representing Karjat-Jamkhed, who aligns with the Sharad Pawar faction.