Properties attached by I-T dept have no links to Ajit Pawar, says NCP's Nawab Malik

The NCP on Tuesday said Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar has no links with the properties attached by the Income-Tax department and the motive behind the action is to defame him. Alleging that the Centre is using its agencies to pressure the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said the ruling dispensation and every individual associated with it will slug it out without any fear. Following extensive nationwide searches on Ajit Pawar’s relatives last month, the taxmen on Tuesday provisionally sent orders to attach their properties in Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune, Goa and also over two dozen land parcels across the state with a combined market value of around Rs 1,400 crore. An Income Tax source confirmed that their benami properties division has issued the provisional attachment orders under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act of 1988, regarding various properties linked to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader’s family members, including his son Parth Pawar. Benami (nameless) properties refer to real estate assets with suspicious titles. A property is benami if it is paid for by someone other than the owner and the source of fund is not known. “It is being said that the I-T department attached properties linked to Ajit Pawar. But there is no truth in it. The property belongs to someone else and they say that it belongs to Ajit Pawar. This is done to defame him,” said Malik, who is a senior NCP minister. In a statement, Ajit Pawar’s lawyer Prashant Patil said the I-T department has neither issued any notice to the Deputy chief minister nor any of his properties has been attached. Ajit Pawar is the nephew of NCP chief Sharad Pawar. The Deputy CM’s relatives have been given 90 days to prove that these properties legitimately belong to them and are not purchased with illicit money. During the pendency of the probe, they cannot sell these properties, the source said. What happened in West Bengal (the alleged misuse of central agencies) is happening in Maharashtra now, Malik said, adding before the 2019 assembly elections, the BJP had pressured many leaders to quit their parties to join it. The same leaders now say that they can sleep peacefully because there is no pressure of any probe by central agencies on them, he added. Malik was apparently referring to BJP leader Harshavardhan Patil’s statement last month that he was getting “sound sleep” in the saffron party as there are “no inquiries”. Patil, a former MLA from Indapur in Pune district, had quit the Congress and switched over to the BJP before the 2019 Assembly polls.