AJIT PAWAR, once again, finds himself up a creek without a paddle. But this time, it was his son Parth who put him in the canoe.
On May 20, Parth’s company Amadea Enterprises LLP—in which he and cousin Digvijay Patil own 99 per cent and 1 per cent, respectively—allegedly bought 40 acres of Mahar watan land in the posh Koregaon Park area of Pune for Rs300 crore; the market price of the plot is said to be around Rs1,800 crore. Moreover, only Rs500 was paid as stamp duty instead of the required Rs21 crore.
A watan, in old Marathi usage, was land granted to a person for providing a service to the village or state. In this case, the land originally granted to the Mahar community, which the state took over post independence.
On November 6, Ajit, the deputy chief minister, told reporters that he had nothing to do with the deal. “When children become adults, they do their own business,” he said. “I don’t support any wrong deed. If I make a mistake, I try to correct it. But in this case, I am not involved.”
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, already embattled with allegations against several leaders in the ruling alliance, immediately ordered an inquiry. “Prima facie, the issue appears to be serious,” he said. “I have sought all the information from relevant departments and orders have been given to conduct an investigation.”
It was a regional news channel that broke the story and, as soon as word spread, the Congress and the Shiv Sena (UBT) sought Ajit’s resignation. They also questioned how a company that had a share capital of only Rs1 lakh could raise Rs300 crore. In response, Ajit said he had never flouted any rules in his career and if anyone from his family had done something wrong, he would never support it. “I have called Chief Minister Fadnavis and told him that he can order a probe,” he said.
Ally ache: Fadnavis (right) with Ajit Pawar | PTI
Interestingly, Supriya Sule, NCP (Sharad Pawar) working president, said she did not think Parth could do something like this. Sharad Pawar, too, stepped in, taking a balanced stand that a fair investigation must be conducted and that family and politics were different.
As per reports, the deal was struck on the basis of a power of attorney (PoA) granted by 272 “owners” to businesswoman Sheetal Tejwani. These people were supposed heirs of the original owners of the land—given as grant pre-independence—and in that capacity granted the PoA. Having gotten them to agree, Tejwani apparently made the deal with Amadea.
However, the 7/12 extract—a key land ownership record in Maharashtra—shows the state government as the owner of the 40-acre plot, making any sale that had happened legally untenable. Moreover, Pune Collector Jitendra Dudi told reporters that the land was on lease to the Botanical Survey of India till 2038.
Vikas Kharge, additional chief secretary in the state revenue department, has been asked to investigate the deal; the timeline set for the probe is one month, said Maharashtra Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule.
An FIR has been registered against Patil and Tejwani, but Parth has not been named.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Ambadas Danve argued that such a deal would not have been possible without Ajit’s influence, and the fact that Parth had not been named in the FIR was proof of this influence.
“How could a transaction involving government-owned watan land even take place?” asked Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal, adding that Fadnavis should show the courage to expel Ajit from the cabinet.
Sapkal also claimed that Amadea had plans to develop an IT park on the land and, shockingly, the state’s directorate of industries gave approval for the project within 48 hours. “Ajit Pawar, who lectures farmers saying, ‘Why do you always ask for things for free? Try working harder,’ has had stamp duty worth Rs21 crore waived in this deal,” he said. “Why does he feel pain when it comes to waiving farmers’ loans, but not when he gets free land?” He demanded that the deal be scrapped, all officials involved be suspended, and a high-level inquiry be conducted.
Ajit, meanwhile, defended his son by claiming that the deal had been scrapped and documents to cancel the sale deed had been submitted to the registering authority. He also said that it was just an agreement of sale and no payment had actually been made, and that Parth did not consult any legal expert or him before making the deal. He blamed the subregistrar for registering the deal and said Parth was not named in the FIR because he had not signed any papers.
As per reports, the registrar has asked Amadea Enterprises to pay about Rs42 crore in stamp duty (original amount and the duty for cancellation).
Notably, this is not the first time a land deal in Pune has been in the political limelight. In 1999, Manohar Joshi, the first Shiv Sena chief minister, had to resign following controversy over the allotment of land reserved for a school to a firm associated with his son-in-law. Then, in 2016, revenue minister and BJP leader Eknath Khadse had to resign following allegations of impropriety in a land deal involving him.
There is no doubt that the latest controversy has caused huge damage to the Fadnavis government’s image. It was Fadnavis who, as opposition leader, had led the charge against Ajit in the infamous irrigation scam controversy in the 2000s. Again, it was Fadnavis who, in his 78-hour stint as chief minister in 2019, stood by as Ajit—his deputy—was given a clean chit in the same case.
Now, in his third term as chief minister, Fadnavis continues to get a bad name because of NCP (Ajit Pawar) leaders. In March this year, former minister Dhananjay Munde was sacked from the cabinet after his close aide Walmik Karad was named as an accused in the murder of BJP activist and Beed sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh. Fadnavis had to personally intervene to clean up the police administration in Beed district.
Another NCP (Ajit Pawar) leader, Manikrao Kokate, was convicted in February in a cheating case from 1995; a court in Nashik later stayed the conviction. Kokate, as agriculture minister, was often found making derogatory remarks against farmers. When the opposition had cornered him, his portfolio was changed and Dattatray Bharane, a close confidant of Ajit, was made agriculture minister.
But it is not just the Ajit camp. Some ministers and legislators from the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) have also created trouble for Fadnavis with their wild statements.
Perhaps concerned by this, Fadnavis had recently announced a performance assessment of his cabinet colleagues. It is a step in the right direction, but if he wants to do it sincerely, he would have to start the process with Ajit Pawar.