Anna Hazare gives clean chit to Sharad Pawar

Pune: After being named by the Enforcement Directorate in the Rs 25,000 crore Maharashtra Co-operative Bank scam, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar has threatened to pay a visit to the ED office in Mumbai on Friday. Social activist Anna Hazare has however said, Pawar is not connected to the scam. "How did his name crop up? This needs to be investigated immediately," said Hazare.

Hazare spoke to the media in Ralegan Siddhi and wondered how Pawar's name got dragged in the scam. "Action needs to be taken against those responsible for naming him," he added. "The truth is I don't have any paper indicating his name. I don't make false allegations. Moreover," he said, "I have evidence which shows Ajit Pawar is connected to this case. I am shocked how ED has named the NCP president," Hazare said.

Hazare has said that co-operative sugar factories took crores of rupees of loans and did not repay the money to the banks. As a result, the banks sealed these factories and auctioned them for pennies. "This makes me suspicious whether these units were really sick or shown as being sick. The CID officer Jai Jadhav did not even investigate this matter thoroughly and just summed up the entire matter in two sentences and shut the case. I suspect even officials are involved in this and a thorough investigation should be made."