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NCP leader and Sharad Pawar loyalist Jayant Patil reportedly met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday. Shortly after his meet speculations rose about him joining the BJP. Reports also suggest that Ajit Pawar has been the mediator in talks between the NCP leader and the saffron party.
However, it is also said that Patil earlier met NCP supremo Sharad Pawar in Mumbai. Union Home Minister Amit Shah said to Ajit Pawar in Pune, “Ajit Pawar you took a long time to come here. I am sitting on stage with Ajit Pawar for the first time.”
“Ajit Pawar is now sitting at the right and right place,” Shah added. Jayant Patil reportedly called the supporting MLAs to Mumbai for a closed door meeting.
Jayant Patil had been on the ED’s radar for quite a while now. From searches at properties linked to the NCP leader to hours of questioning session, Patil has gone through a lot of things in past few months.
A 60-member team of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on June 23 carried out predawn searches at 14 premises in western Maharashtra in connection with a money laundering case. The 14-hour raids on residences, offices and shops belonging to Dinesh and Suresh Parekh, members of a prominent business family in Sangli, led to the seizure of property documents, account books and financial records, including bank passbook.
The office of Rajarambapu Sahakari Bank Ltd (RSBL), linked to NCP state president Jayant Patil in Sangli, was also raided. The ED is investigating a decade-old case of nearly Rs1,000 crore scam involving alleged dubious sales tax refunds procured by a few private firms. Preliminary investigation estimated that dubious Value-Added Tax (VAT) refunds withdrawn by the suspected firms exceed Rs1,000 crore.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) questioned state NCP president Jayant Patil for over 10 hours on May 22 at their Ballard Estate office, in a money laundering case linked to alleged financial irregularities in the now bankrupt financial services firm, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (IL&FS). Patil appeared before the ED at 11.30am amidst a protest by NCP workers and was grilled till 9.30pm.
