Won't bow down before Delhi "throne": Pawar on ED action
Mumbai: NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Tuesday said he will visit the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office on September 27 in connection with a money laundering case filed against him by the agency.
Addressing media here, Pawar also questioned the timing of the ED move, which comes days before the October 21 Maharashtra Assembly elections.
Pawar said he will visit the ED office at 2 pm on September 27 to submit "whatever information" sought in connection with the Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank scam.
"I will be mostly out of Mumbai for Assembly poll campaigning. The agency officials shouldn't misunderstand that I am unavailable. I will go to them and give them whatever information they want," Pawar said.
Pawar said he believes in the Constitution of India.
"Maharashtra follows the ideology of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. We don't know bowing down before the Delhi takht (throne)," Pawar said.
The ED filed the money laundering case against Pawar, his nephew Ajit Pawar and 70 others in the bank scam on the directions of the Bombay High Court.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the ED registered the case based on the High Court directive.
"It would be wrong to attribute a political motive for the ED action and call it a political vendetta (by the BJP government)," Fadnavis told reporters.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
