‘Other departments also approved same files’

Embattled Nationalist Congress Party leader and former public works department minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who is being investigated for corruption by the Enforcement Directorate and other agencies, has said that many departments and a Cabinet subcommittee headed by the then chief minister had approved the relevant files and he alone could not be held responsible. Mr Bhujbal was speaking at a press conference on Tuesday organised after his return to the city from a trip to the US.

Some of his supporters managed to enter the press conference, and clapped and cheered at his remarks. A few thousand of them, shouting slogans and carrying posters expressing their support for him, had come to the airport to receive him.

Defending the decisions related to award of contracts for reconstructing a Maharashtra Sadan in New Delhi that led to allegations of corruption, Mr Bhujbal said a group of ministers of the Congress-NCP government had taken the call.

“The Cabinet is supreme and they should not question decisions taken by the Cabinet,” he said. “Everything is in black and white and the truth will come out.”

He alleged that he in being targeted politically, and claimed he would come out innocent in these cases as he had in the Telgi scam earlier, in which he was also investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Regarding the current crop of cases, he pointed to a report by the PWD department that had found him innocent. “The first report that gave me a clean chit took six months to prepare. It has signatures of secretaries and the minister. The second report was made in just two days,” he claimed.

The current investigations into allegations of corruption against Mr Bhujbal, his nephew and former member of Parliament Sameer, and son and current MLA Pankaj, are the result of an order by the Bombay high court. The investigation is being carried out by a Special Investigation Team monitored by the court.

Sameer Bhujbal is currently under arrest. Chhagan Bhujbal said it was wrong of the ED to have arrested him since he was cooperating with the investigation – a point disputed by the agency.