Ajit Pawar defended son Parth in the Pune land deal case, blaming the sub-registrar for the alleged irregularities and calling the allegations politically driven. (Express Photograph by Arul Horizon)
As Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s son Parth Pawar is currently embroiled in a row involving an alleged land scam in Pune, his father defended him Sunday and blamed the sub-registrar who registered the sale deed.
”His father has put forth his stand,” said Ajit Pawar when reporters asked him in his hometown, Baramati, as to why Parth was not coming forward and clearing the air.
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Blaming the sub-registrar who registered the sale deed, he said, ”How did the individual in the sub-registrar’s office register the deed? What prompted him to register and do the wrong job? We will come to know this through the probe,” he said.
The State Revenue Department has already suspended sub-registrar Ravindra Taru for alleged irregularities in the registration process of the 44-acre Mahar Watan land, whose market value is stated to be over Rs 1,800 crore. The land was purchased by Amadea Enterprises LLP, in which Parth Pawar is a party. The sub-registrar is also accused of waiving the Rs 21-crore stamp duty on the Rs 300-crore deal.
Hinting that the allegations were politically motivated, Ajit Pawar said,” When elections approach, these kinds of allegations are made against us.”
When the alleged land scam first came to light, Ajit Pawar had stated that he had heard something about it three to four months prior and had assured that nothing wrong would be done..
”In 2009, too, similar allegations of a Rs 70,000-crore scam were made. Now, even after 15 years, no one has been able to provide proof, and nothing has happened. This only leads to our defamation. We can understand if anyone has done anything wrong and then allegations are made. But despite ensuring transparency, working for the people throughout the day, following the Constitution, adhering to all laws, they keep making allegations from morning to evening,” he said.
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Ajit Pawar said facts will come to light through the probe ordered by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. ”FIR has been lodged against those involved. A committee appointed by the Chief Minister is probing the matter,” he said.
The Deputy CM stated that since he began his political career, he has consistently ensured that he does not engage in any wrongdoing. ”I want to repeat. Whether it is my family members or close associates seeking to have any illegal work done, I appeal to officials to never listen to them. They should not fall prey to any pressure,” he said.
Meanwhile, Rohit Pawar, MLA belonging to NCP (SP) and cousin of Parth, said, “If an individual is a relative of a person in power or from the Opposition and if he is indulging in any wrong thing, the facts should be brought before the people. But we must remember that there is not one person involved in this. There is a long chain. There are some officers. We need to find out how the officers behave and why they give preference to certain people and ignore the poor.”
As for Baramati MP Supriya Sule’s support to Parth Pawar, Rohit said, “While taking the stand, Supriya Sule, who is a mother herself, turned emotional initially, but later she took a proper stand. Sharad Pawar has already articulated our stand.”
Despite repeated calls, Parth Pawar has refused to respond.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
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