NCP supremo Sharad Pawar's nephew Ajit Pawar might haveturned the tables in Maharashtra to form a government with the BJP, but did the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case against him relating to the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) scam to the tune of Rs 25,000 crore play a major rolefor the junior Pawar to revolt against his uncle and switch alliance with the saffron party?

However, ED officials said that the cases against NCP leaders are still open and the investigation is going on.On September 24, the ED had registered a case of money laundering against Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar and several others, triggering a political turmoil in Maharashtra ahead of the October 21 Assembly elections for 288 seats.

The ED registered the case after the Bombay High Courtordered the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police to probe and filecases against the Pawars and others in the matter.

Following the EOW's FIR in late August, the ED filed itscase a month later. After registering the case, the ED had said that there wereseveral irregularities in loans provided to the Cooperative Sugar Factories(CSFs) by the MSCB officials who were allegedly connected to the owners of thefactories.

The loans were sanctioned to the factories despite weakfinancials, negative net worth, collaterals not taken in many cases andadditional facilities extended without any justification.

This and other factors resulted in many of the CSFs fallingsick while many were sold at lower than the reserve price for the benefit ofthe buyers who were personally or politically connected with the MSCB directorswhose consent was not taken before the sales.

Besides, the ED said many transactions involved forged salesdocuments and many sales were affected without inviting tenders, thus floutingthe rules of NABARD, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the SARFAESI Act.

"There was huge misappropriation of funds on the partof committee members, directors and loan committee members of MSCB, acting inconnivance to siphon off the money and causing huge losses to the bank,"an ED official said.

Senior Pawar, however, soon turned the political tide in hisfavour after he announced that Maharashtra has never bowed before Delhi and hewas going to appear before the ED.

Commenting on the developments in the case, an ED officialtold IANS, "The case is open and we are preparing our grounds to summonthose named in the FIR for questioning and no one will be spared."

The Pawars and other prominent politicians were named in apublic interest litigation filed by Mumbai-based activist Surinder M. Arora,accusing them of causing losses worth around Rs 25,000 crore to the MSCBbetween 2007 and 2011.