Dismissing senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Praful Patel’s accusation against him, Maharashtra’s former Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan said on Friday that it was not him but the then Home Minister RR Patil of the NCP who had ordered an ACB inquiry into the alleged involvement of deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and Water Resources Minister Sunil Tatkare in the irrigation scam.
Four days after Patel accused him of having attempted consistently to defame the NCP leaders by implicating them in scams after scams, the former Chief Minister said that there was not truth in Patel’s charge. “He (Patel) should know that after the then Shiv Sena-BJP alliance-led Opposition demanded a probe into the irrigation scam, it was then Home Minister RR Patil of the NCP who had ordered an inquiry by the Anti-Corruption Bureau against Pawar and Tatkare on September 20, 2014. Patel should realise that it was neither me nor the Congress that was behind the ACB probe against Pawar and Tatkare,” Chavan said.