BJP hits out at Cong over Chavan’s Adarsh remarks

MUMBAI: A day after The Telegraph quoted former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan as saying he stopped short of taking action against three of his immediate predecessors accused in the Adarsh scam as it would have “decimated” his party, the BJP hit out at the Congress on Tuesday.

“A prominent newspaper has made a sensational claim that former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan in an interview admitted that he was part of corruption in Maharashtra and he made compromises while running the state,” said Rajiv Pratap Rudy, the BJP’S general secretary in charge of the state, at a press conference.

Chavan in a statement claimed he was misquoted in the interview and his statements pulled out of context.

The Telegraph quoted Chavan as saying: “I must say that Adarsh brought under the scanner Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sushil Shinde and Ashok Chavan — the top Congress leadership in the state. If I had taken action against them, the party would have been

decimated in Maharashtra. If I had sent them to jail, it would have hit the party organisation. The party would have split.”

Prithviraj Chavan replaced Ashok Chavan who was forced to resign as chief minister after it came to light that close relatives of his had got flats allotted in the Adarsh housing society.

The Congress has been projecting Chavan as its chief ministerial candidate in this election hoping to cash in on his clean image.

The Telegraph quoted Chavan as admitting to rampant institutionalised corruption in the Congress-led government.

It also quoted him as saying that the multi-crore irrigation scam merited a judicial inquiry,

and that the probe ordered was botched up as there was some match-fixing between the NCP and the BJP.

“A SIT was set up with mem bers of all parties, including the BJP, but the NCP worked the back channels and ensured that it never investigated anything… I could have been proactive and I could have insisted that it was a judicial commission and that Pawar should be summoned and questioned. But I was running an alliance… my hands were tied,’’ the newspaper quoted Chavan as saying.

It is learnt that senior state Congress leaders are upset with the interview and conveyed their displeasure to the party top brass in Delhi.