Kalmadi, Chavan are innocent: Digvijay Singh

Pune , Mon, 11 Jul 2011 ANI

Pune, July 11 (ANI): Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh supporting former Commonwealth Games (CWG) Organizing Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, on Monday said they both are innocent and will come out clean.

"We feel extremely bad that Ashok Chavan had to quit his chief minister post, we also feel bad that today our brother Suresh Kalmadi has to face the atrocities. I personally think and reiterate again that both of them are innocent and will come out clean," he said.

Hitting out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Digvijay Singh said: "When the scams are being unearthed in front of the chief ministers of Bharatiya Janata Party, why investigations are not undertaken in these cases? Santosh Hegde, justice of Karnataka Lokayukta has filed a report against B.S Yeddyurappa, chief minister of Karnataka for his involvement in corruption."

"But Gadkari (Nitin Gadkari) of Bharatiya Janata Party said that it can be immoral but cannot be illegal which means the party which says that we are a party of difference, whose character and face are different has proved the statement that their character and face are different and are fully involved in corruption," he added.

Digvijay Singh further said: "How these scams are coming out in public? Today the scams are being exposed because we have given people right to information act and if right to information act was not there then Adarsh Housing society scam, Commonwealth Games scam and 2G spectrum wouldn't have been unearthed."

Kalmadi, 66, is lodged in jail no 4 of Tihar jail in connection with alleged irregularities in the conduct of the mega-sporting event.

Kalmadi was arrested by the CBI on April 25 for fraud and conspiring with other officers of the Organising Committee for overpaying a Swiss firm 95 crores for timing and scorekeeping equipment that was used at different venues during the Commonwealth Games.

Kalmadi has been accused of sanctioning payments to AM Films and AM Car at rates that were hugely inflated.

Ashok Chavan had to step down as Maharashtra Chief Minister last year following revelations of the Adarsh controversy. He was among the 14 accused named by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in its probe into the scam.

Chavan, the then revenue minister of the state, is accused of recommending 40 per cent allotment of flats in the Adarsh Society, originally meant for Kargil war widows, to civilians. (ANI)