Congress MP challenges Kamat’s clean chit to BJP leader

PANAJI - A Congress MP Tuesday challenged Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat’s clean chit to his political rival and senior BJP leader Manohar Parrikar, who is being probed by the CBI in a multi-crore scam relating to building infrastructure for the 2004 International Film Festival of India (IFFI).

Addressing a press conference in Panaji, Shantaram Naik, a Rajya Sabha member, said that crores of rupees had been misappropriated for creating infrastructure for the first IFFI in Goa and the illegalities had been documented in a fact-finding report commissioned by the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) in 2004.

“You ask this question to the chief minister (Kamat). You tell him that the GPCC in its report had pointed out to a number of illegalities regarding IFFI 2004. There is no question of a clean chit,” said Naik, a former GPCC president.

Interestingly, the Congress fact-finding report holds the entire core committee of IFFI 2004 responsible for the alleged infrastructure scam.

While the core committee was headed by Parrikar, Kamat, who was then a minister in the BJP-led coalition government, was a crucial member of the committee responsible for clearing of projects.

Kamat subsequently joined the Congress from the BJP two years ago.

Less than a day after Parrikar was questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials in Panaji in April, Kamat gave him a clean chit, saying that the core committee had taken all decisions correctly.

Naik said he was willing to hand over the “explosive” fact-finding committee report to the CBI officials as evidence if they asked for it.

“I am willing to hand it over to them anytime. Let them investigate it,” Naik said, admitting that the investigations into the 2004 alleged scandal had dragged on for a considerable length of time.