ED probe against him politically motivated, says NCP’s Eknath Khadse

Another senior leader from Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is in trouble. Eknath Khadse, former revenue minister, was questioned by the enforcement directorate (ED) for nine hours in the alleged money laundering case on Thursday.

Khadse joined the NCP in October last year and has been facing investigation by the central agency since December 2020, two months after leaving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On Wednesday, his son-in-law Girish Choudhary was arrested by ED in the same case. “In my view all this started after I joined NCP by leaving BJP… The case is politically motivated. Efforts are made to frame me in it by any means. For the last eight days, a message has been going viral on social media in Jalgaon (district) that something related to me is about to happen. The way (BJP) activists are aware of the ED action in advance indicates that it is a conspiracy but I’m ready to face it,” Khadse told reporters outside ED office on Thursday morning.

He said that Maharashtra and the entire country is watching what is going on. The case has been probed five times by different agencies. The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has given him a clean chit by submitting a C-summary report. “The land I bought is privately owned and not of MIDC. The corporation has not completed the process of acquisition. They have neither paid the compensation nor taken its possession,” Khadse stressed.

“Khadse’s induction in NCP has irritated the BJP which is using central agencies to frame him in a case. He is innocent and we are sure he will come out clean,” said Jayant Patil, state NCP chief. Patil said that a commission formed by the erstwhile the BJP-led government has also given him a clean chit.

Khadse is under scrutiny for allegations of graft and conflict of interest in a land deal in Bhosari near Pune. The plot was bought by his wife Mandakini and son-in-law in 2016 for ₹3.75 crore against the prevalent market rate of ₹30 crore. According to the ED officials, Khadse and his family fraudulently purchased the said land, despite having knowledge that it was reserved for Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), so that they could claim the compensation of more than double the market rate when the MIDC acquired it.

He would be the third NCP leader who would be going behind the bars on corruption charges, if arrested. Before him, senior NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal and Gularao Deokar have faced arrest over corruption charges. Bhujbal is currently out on bail and is holding food and civil supplies portfolio in the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government in the state.

Besides, one more NCP leader and former home minister Anil Deshmukh is also facing an investigation by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ED over charges of extortion made by former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh. Deshmukh has moved the Supreme Court seeking protection from coercive action in a money laundering case.

In 2016, Bhujbal, also former deputy chief minister, was also arrested in a money laundering case and was in jail for two years before he got bail on health grounds in May 2018. He was arrested by ED for allegedly receiving kickbacks worth crores for awarding various government contracts, including the Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi.

Before him, Deokar, former minister and a NCP leader from Jalgaon district, was arrested in May 2012. He spent around three years behind bars before getting bail. He was found involved in a 1997 housing scam related to the construction of 11,000 low-cost houses in Jalgaon in north Maharashtra and was convicted by a sessions court in 2019, along with 47 others. Deokar was a member of the Jalgaon Municipal Council from 1995 to 2000 when the scam took place.