Even as BJP president Nitin Gadkari threatened to sue IAC activist Anjali Damania for the latter’s allegation that he had tried to thwart attempts to expose the irrigation scam in Maharashtra, IAC on Thursday announced the date on which the activist had met Mr Gadkari in Mumbai.
Ms Damania has claimed that when she had met Mr Gadkari at his residence in Mumbai on August 14. She alleged that at that time Mr Gadkari had “chided her zeal and lack of understanding of politics”. The BJP president had also allegedly said that party leader Dr Kirit Somaiya was an “eccentric person” for trying to file a PIL, and he (Gadkari) would ask the leader to stop the process. Dr Somaiya, however, has denied that there was any pressure from his party president against filing the PIL. Further, Ms Damania has alleged that Mr Gadkari told her that the BJP was not going to raise the irrigation scam issue saying, “We have good equations with NCP leader Sharad Pawar, as we do business together. While he does some of our work, we do some of his work.”
Mr Gadkari’s counsel Shamshery & Associates has served a legal notice against Ms Damania. “My client strongly denies the false, baseless and defamatory statement about him having business relations with Mr Pawar,” the notice states.
Mr Gadkari’s counsel maintains that the BJP’s Maharashtra unit was the first to unearth the irrigation scam, and has undertaken public agitations in addition to appropriate legal remedy on this issue.
The BJP president has now demanded that Ms Damania retract the “false, baseless and defamatory remarks”, and tender a public apology.
It warns that in case of failing to do so, the counsel would be free to initiate legal proceedings against Ms Damania.