Vilasrao hits back at Chavan, says won’t resign
Blame game has begun in the Congress on the Adarsh Housing scam. While Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan is using his media management skill to hit his detractors in the Congress and NCP, Union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is perhaps the first Congress leader to hit back at Mr Chavan openly.
On Monday, Mr Deshmukh claimed that it was Mr Chavan as the then revenue minister who asked the controversial housing society involved in a scam in Mumbai “to change the bylaws to include civilians in it”.
Denying any role in the scam, Mr Deshmukh, who as CM had signed the “letter of intent and not the final order”, ruled out resignation from the Union government.
“This application, which was made earlier, was made to construct houses for servicemen. That was the main proposal, but ultimately what happened in between is that they changed the bylaws. The society was asked to change the bylaws by the then revenue minister Ashok Chavan. That is on record. He called a meeting and called members of the society and asked them to change the bylaws and that 40 per cent of civilians should be allowed to be members of the society. There it created a lot of problems,” Mr Deshmukh told CNN-IBN. Asked about the fact that it was under his chief ministership that final permissions were given and whether he accepted responsibility, he said, “No, I don’t deny that but the problem is what I signed was the letter of intent and not the final order. Secondly, the prerogative of clearing everything is with the revenue department. Whatever the recommendations made by the revenue department, in good faith I have signed the file.”
Mr Deshmukh said this was a general practise because these files came to the CM as these were lands in Mumbai.
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