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Rahul faults Prithviraj for trashing Adarsh housing scam report

“I do not agree with the decision of the Maharashtra cabinet to reject the report of the Adarsh commission of inquiry,” Rahul told the media after the high-profile ‘strategy session’ he held with top party leaders and chief ministers of a dozen Congress-ruled states in Delhi.

The session, held in the aftermath of the drubbing the party received in the recent assembly polls in four northern states, focused on corruption and price rise, which were seen as the two major reasons for the defeat of the Congress.

But even as Rahul, the likely prime ministerial candidate of the Congress in next year’s general elections, is projecting himself as an anti-corruption crusader, his party in Maharashtra is being seen protecting the corrupt.

The Congress-led Maharashtra government recently rejected the Adarsh commission report, which had probed the illegalities in the controversial high-rise building which came up in south Mumbai’s posh Cuffe Parade locality. Former chief minister Ashok Chavan — who was sacked by the party after the scam surfaced – has been blamed for tweaking the rules; Chavan’s relatives got three flats in the building after he gave concessions to the promoters.

Several other former Congress chief ministers, ministers and other leaders — besides bureaucrats and army officers — have been accused of giving concessions to the promoters of Adarsh building, and extracting flats in return for the favours.

The Maharashtra government was even reluctant to present the two-man Adarsh commission report to the state legislature, but was forced by the Bombay high court to do so. The government presented the report on the last day of the winter session of the legislature, but decided to reject it.

Chavan’s decision has been slammed not just by the opposition, but even by ally the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and even some of its own leaders. Milind Deora, the junior minister for Information Technology and Communications in the union government — who is also an MP from south Mumbai — has expressed his opposition to the junking of the report.

nithin@khaleejtimes.com