Mumbai, Nov 25: In what comes as a partial relief and a breather to rebel NCP leader and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, nine cases related to the over Rs 72,000 crore irrigation scam has been closed all of a sudden under suspicious circumstances.
The development comes within days after he joined hands with Bharatiya Janata Party. The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of the Maharashtra police was investigating the scandal.
Pawar, who had been the water resources minister, had come under scrutiny because of the scam and even had to resign briefly, when he was part of the Congress-NCP Democratic Front government.
The allegation was that Rs 72,000 crore was spent in a decade, ending in 2010, with an addition of a mere 0.1 per cent of irrigation potential.
In fact, BJP's Devendra Fadnavis, who was then in opposition benches, was one of the whistleblowers in the scam forcing the then chief minister Prithviraj Chavan to order a probe.
When Fadnavis took over as the chief minister in 2014, he ordered the ACB probe. However, ACB director general Parambir Singh clarified that the cases were not linked to Pawar.
"We are investigating around 3,000 tenders in irrigation related complaints. These are routine inquiries which are closed and all ongoing investigations are continuing as they were earlier," Singh was quoted saying by a news agency.
ACB officials said that the cases that were closed today were conditional, cases could reopen if more information comes to light or courts order further inquiry.
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