'I have documents of Pawar-Balwa land deal'

Nationalist Congress Party chief and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar's claims about not being acquainted with DB Realty and Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Balwa are false, according to a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Maharashtra.

Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra legislative assembly Eknath Khadse has claimed that he is in possession of documents that prove the links between Pawar and Balwa.

Balwa is currently lodged in jail after being arrested for his alleged involvement in the Rs 176,000 crore 2G scam.

Khadse said he will present a copy of land deal agreements that prove the 'partnership' between Pawar's family and Balwa in the assembly on Friday.

"I will produce the registered copy of the agreement in the assembly today," Khadse told rediff.com on Friday morning.

On Thursday, Khadse had alleged in the assembly that Pawar and Balwa had travelled together to Dubai on February 8, 2010.

"We have the copy of the log maintained by the Air Traffic Controller that clearly mentions the names of the travellers as Sharad Pawar and Shahid Balwa," Khadse said.

He added that the Dubai airport has also logged the names of Pawar and Balwa as air passengers in February 2010.

The agriculture minister had earlier claimed that he and Balwa didn't know each other.

While reacting to Khadse's statement, Maharashtra Home Minister and NCP leader R R Patil didn't deny that the two flew together to Dubai.

But he tried to defend the NCP chief by saying that Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray had also availed the services of Eon Aviation, which is owned by Balwa.

When questioned about Thackeray using Balwa's plane, Khadse shot back that 14,400 people might have flown by Eon Aviation.

"We wanted to prove that Pawar's claims about not knowing Balwa are false," he said.