Right to Information activist Anjali Damania tells Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore that she is confident that if a judicial probe is ordered into the irrigation scam, NCP leader Ajit Pawar would surely be implicated.

R TI activist Anjali Damania whose expose of the irrigation scam led to the resignation of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on September 25 on Thursday demanded the resignation of Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari on moral grounds. Damania alleged that Gadkari did not pursue the irrigation scam when she met him last year citing his business interest with the deputy chief minister's uncle and Nationalist Party supremo Sharad Pawar.

In one more shocking allegation, Damania claims that godman Bhaiyyu Maharaj influenced Gadkari to go slow on the expose at the Nationalist Congress Party's behest when they learned that she had approached Gadkari to seek his help in raising the issue.

Bhaiyyu Maharaj, along with the late Vilasrao Deshmukh (who was the industry minister then in the Union cabinet), apparently played a key role in pacifying Anna Hazare to end his fast-unto-death at Delhi's Ramlila maidan demanding the passage of Lokpal Bill into a law.

Excerpts of the interview.

Do you think Ajit Pawar is involved in this irrrigation scam?

Definitely. There is no doubt about that.

Are these just claims or you have material evidence to prove it?

We have the entire data; all the tenders, all the internal communications between the officers (and the water resources minister), the way the letters have gone through... the letters have travelled three districts in one day, which is absolutely absurd, which shows the haste in which it was done.

Are you confident that the documents that you have could stand legal scrutiny in a court of law?

Definitely. If you go to the court it is an open and shut case. And that is the reason we (IAC) are demanding a judicial probe by a retired judge.

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