NCP-SP's Rohit Pawar to keep date with ED on Wed in money-laundering case

Mumbai : Baramati Agro Ltd's high-profile CEO and NCP-Sharad Pawar MLA Rohit Rajendra Pawar is scheduled to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday in connection with the probe into an alleged case of money-laundering.

Last week, the ED had issued the summons to Rohit Pawar – the grand-nephew of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar – even as the NCP-SP plans to hold a massive show of strength in Mumbai to kickstart the preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Offering him moral support, his aunt and NCP-SP Working President Supriya Sule is expected to drop him off to the ED office, while grand-uncle Sharad Pawar shall remain stationed at the party state headquarters just across the road.

The legislator from Karjat-Jamkhed in Ahmednagar district, Rohit Pawar faces a Mumbai Police FIR of August 2019 on purported money-laundering charges arising from the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) scam, and the ED’s allegations of illegal ‘diversion of funds’ to a company that bid to buy an ailing sugar cooperative factory.

However, Rohit Pawar has consistently denied all the charges and claimed there was no wrongdoings in the matters alleged by the police and ED, which had raided the company recently.

"The time has brought challenges and is a time of struggle. At such a time, we all will fight with patience, self-respect, unity and overcome the difficulties. Fight and win!," Supriya Sule wrote on social media.

The opposition Maha Vikas Alliance (MVA) partners, Congress and Shiv Sena-UBT leaders have termed the ongoing action as ‘political vendetta and witch-hunt’ of the political rivals by the government through misuse of central investigation agencies.

The NCP-SP has also alleged that Rohit Pawar is being targeted as he did not succumb to political pressures to support his uncle, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s breakaway NCP faction after the split in July 2023.

However, the NCP-Ajit Pawar state President Sunil Tatkare and others have rubbished the charges saying the agency may have found something incriminating in its probe, but he had nothing to fear if he has not committed any wrongs.