Sharad Pawar to pay voluntary visit to ED office

NCP founder-president Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said that he would go to the Enforcement Directorate office on his own.

"I will myself go to the ED office in Mumbai on 27 September at 2 pm. I will cooperate with the agency," Pawar told a news conference in Mumbai on Wednesday.

The ED on Tuesday evening booked Pawar, a four-time Maharashtra chief minister and ex-union minister, and his nephew and former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and almost 70 others in connection with the Rs 25,000 crore Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam.

Earlier, the youth wing of the NCP protested outside the ED office in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, there was an impromptu bandh in Baramati in Pune district, the bastion of the Pawar family. This is the first time that Pawar has been named in a criminal case.

It is alleged that bank officials provided loans to cooperative sugar factories owned by politicians and political families. These loans were sanctioned despite the negative net worth of the cooperatives and no co-laterals were taken.

Last month, the Bombay High Court had asked the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai police to file an FIR. After the FIR, the ED now has registered a case against the uncle-nephew duo and 70-odd others.