The State Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) has given a clean chit to Maharashtra Minister for Women and Child Welfare Pankaja Munde in the sensational `206-crore Anganwadi Chikki procurement scam.
Informed ACB sources said here on Wednesday that the State ACB had closed the chikki scam file involving Pankaja and submitted a report to the State Home ministry giving a clean chit to the 36-year-old Minister.
The alleged scam had come to light in June last year after the Ahmednagar Zilla Parishad president wrote to Munde, complaining about the quality of food (chikki) distributed among tribal students under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).
The ACB had launched a probe into the alleged scam, after Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant had in the last week of June last year lodged a complaint with it against Pankaja.
The allegations that Pankaja, who is the daughter of late BJP leader Gopinath Munde, faced related to the purchase of a host of items including chikkis, mats, dishes and books for children under the Integrated Child Development Services by the Women and Child Development Ministry headed by her.
The allegation made by Sawant against Pankaja was that on a single day–February 13, 2015-that her ministry had issued 24 government resolutions to facilitate procurement of material worth `206 crore.
Sawant had accused Pankaja of clearing purchase of a wide range of items for state-run schools for tribal children under the ICDS, without floating e-tenders.
The Bombay High Court is currently hearing a public interest litigation filed by one Sandeep Ahire against the Minister.
Reacting to the clean chit given to Pankaja by the ACB, State Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant-who had
lodged a complaint against her in the scam – said, “This Government is a ‘clean chit’ Government and it protects corrupt Ministers”.
State NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik charged that chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was shielding his “corrupt minister. “The clean chit given by the ACB to Munde is a clear-cut example of how the chief minister is protecting his ministers. There are corruption charges against 22 ministers of the government. The ACB may have given a clean chit to Munde, but the matter is pending before the high court. We will take the chikki scam case to a logical conclusion”.