Minister of State for Social Justice, Dilip Kamble, on Wednesday assured the assembly house that CID is inquiring into the alleged over Rs 450 crore scam in the Lok Shahir Annabhau Sathe Backward Deve
Minister of State for Social Justice, Dilip Kamble, on Wednesday assured the assembly house that CID is inquiring into the alleged over Rs 450 crore scam in the Lok Shahir Annabhau Sathe Backward Development Corporation, and 13 employees of the corporation have already been arrested till date.
“The CID inquiry, in this case, has been going on and NCP party men have been found involved in the corruption,” alleged Mr Kamble. He assured the legislative assembly that beneficiaries of the scam would be arrested within a month. “As of now, action has been taken against 74 employees and 13 of them have been arrested so far and 16 have been suspended,” said Mr Kamble, replying to a calling attention motion moved by BJP MLA Anil Gote, who alleged that 60 sitting legislators from the house are beneficiaries of the scam and demanded that the government declare their names in the house.
About one of the 13 arrested accused, Ramesh Kadam, a NCP legislator from Mohol, who is under custody on charges of misusing his position to siphon off Rs 141 crore to organisations that he controls, Mr Kamble, said, “Mr Kadam, who was Chairman of the Corporation, misused funds. He bought 59 luxury SUVs in the name of dalit (scheduled caste) candidates under the Corporation welfare scheme, and distributed them among NCP men. The SUVs were used for the last Assembly elections. Of the Rs 450 crore corporation fund, Rs 106 crore was transferred to the account of Mumbai-based builder, Vimal Shah.”
The charges against Mr Kadam include illegally sanctioning Rs 41 crore to a central cooperative society he controls and Rs 58 crore to set up a spinning mill in Aurangabad, which is also under his control.
Mr Kadam allegedly also made various other transactions on behalf of the corporation, causing financial losses to it. The probe against Mr Kadam began last year, when the Congress-NCP alliance was in power, but it was handed over to the CID only under the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena rule.
Mr Gote said, “People are suspecting us, so the government should declare names of those people who are beneficiaries of luxury vehicles,” and was almost about to openly name the NCP leaders allegedly involved in the scam, when Mr Kamble named Madan Bafna, former NCP spokesperson from Pune. However, Mr Bafna was not available for comment. Mr Kamble tabled the names of persons allegedly involved in the scam in the lower house but refrained from actually revealing any of them.
Meanwhile, NCP MLAs Shashikant Shinde, Rana Jagjitsingh and Satish Patil kicked up a row in the house and stepped into the well of the House while ruling party members, too, opposed them. In the midst of all this chaos, the house got adjourned for ten minutes. Notably, senior Nationalist Congress Party legislators such as Ajit Pawar, Jayant Patil and Dilip Valse-Patil were not present in the house during this time.
Meanwhile, highly-placed sources from the social justice department revealed that 59 leaders, including 11 former ministers of NCP would face action in the scam. According to another source, Mr Kadam has set his mind on exposing the names of all leaders who are beneficiaries and involved in the scam.
Mr Kadam is lodged in the anda cell of Arthur Road Jail and will expose the names through affidavit, the source said.
