NCP leader calls Anna Hazare 'RSS agent'

"Why is Hazare not protesting over any issue in the BJP-ruled Maharashtra," Nawab Malik asked

With Anna Hazare moving the Bombay High Court seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the alleged "Rs 25,000 crore sugar cooperative factories scam", the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Wednesday dubbed the social activist as an "agent of the RSS".

NCP spokesman Nawab Malik alleged that Hazare was playing a role in the "RSS conspiracy" to defame senior NCP leaders like Sharad Pawar.

"Why is Hazare not protesting over any issue in the BJP-ruled Maharashtra," Malik asked.

Hazare recently moved the Bombay High Court seeking a CBI inquiry into what he termed a "Rs 25,000 crore sugar cooperative factories scam".

He filed two civil PILs and a criminal PIL seeking a CBI probe into the issue. The criminal PIL is listed for hearing on January 6 before a bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka.

The petitions alleged that fraud had been committed in governance by first burdening sugar cooperative factories with debts and thereafter selling these sick units at a throwaway price, causing loss of Rs 25,000 crore to the government, cooperative sector and members of the public.

The petitions also demanded an inquiry by a Special Investigating Team (SIT) into the alleged role of "politicians into the sugar cooperative scam, including NCP president and former Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and his nephew and former irrigation minister Ajit Pawar".