NCP leader Khadse appears before ED in money laundering case probe

Mumbai, July 8

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Former Maharashtra revenue minister and NCP leader Eknath Khadse on Thursday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate here in a money laundering case investigation, a day after his son-in-law was arrested by the federal agency.

Khadse, 68, told reporters outside the Enforcement Directorate (ED) zonal office in Ballard Estate area of south Mumbai that the probe in the case is “politically motivated”.

“I will cooperate with the agency…today also I have come for the same. This is a politically motivated case and entire Maharashtra and the country is seeing this.”

“Inquiry has been done five times in this case. How many times will they do it?” he said.

The agency had summoned Khadse to depose and record his statement after it arrested his son-in-law Girish Chaudhari on Wednesday in the case that is linked to a 2016 instance of an alleged government land grab case in Pune.

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader who left the BJP to join the Sharad Pawar-led party last year has been once questioned by the ED in this case in January this year.

The ED case stems from a Pune police anti-corruption bureau (ACB) FIR filed against Khadse, his wife Mandakini and Chaudhari in April 2017.

The agency claimed that alleged irregularities in the land deal caused a loss of Rs 61.25 crore to the exchequer “by fraudulently entering into a sale deed”. PTI