Mumbai:
Opposition parties in Maharashtra came down heavily on the ruling Congress- NCP combine, especially Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, for failing to table the Adarsh Commission probe report on the housing society scam in the Assembly on Friday.
"The chief minister is deceiving people... shielding corrupt colleagues," state BJP president Devendra Fadnavis told reporters on the last day of the Monsoon session of the Maharashtra Assembly.
Rejecting the allegations, the government explained to the media the reason for its inability to table the report which was submitted by the two-member commission three months ago.
"The Commission report is with the government but the Action Taken Report (ATR) that we have to submit along with it is not ready," Harshvardhan Patil, Minister of Legislative Affairs, said.
For the Congress, though, it is ally, NCP, which is worryingly adding to its discomfort over the probe report.
Deputy Chief Minister and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar shocked Congress after he said on Friday that it was Mr Chavan who had asked him to assure the House that the report would be tabled before the end of the session.
Later, the chief minister clarified that he was sitting next to Mr Pawar and since the latter was already addressing the House, he asked him to say that the government would try and table the Adarsh report in the Monsoon session.
When grilled by reporters on when the report will be tabled, the chief minister was non-committal. "We are following this matter under Commission of Inquiry Act. We will submit the report when ATR is complete," he said.
The opposition alleges that the government is dragging its feet on the Adarsh report as it will hurt the Congress.
Former chief minister Ashok Chavan lost his job due to the scam and is an accused in the case. His predecessors, late Vilasrao Deshmukh and Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, have also been questioned by the commission for clearing critical files pertaining to the Adarsh housing society.
Sources say the Chief Minister also fears a possible clean chit to Ashok Chavan and his emergence as an alternate power centre.
A furious Opposition has demanded a special session of Maharashtra assembly to table the report, but the government says it's not necessary.