NT NETWORK
MARGAO
Denying his involvement in the alleged water tank scam, the former PWD minister Churchill Alemao, on Saturday, said the BJP-led government is afraid of his growing political clout, and hence implicating him in such cases.
Alemao, while addressing the media in Margao said, “It is a clear move to lower my political image. FIRs are filed whenever I disclose my political plans. I tell you, even if I am jailed, I will fill the form from the lock-up and win the election,” he said.
He, however, did not rule out seeking anticipatory bail in the alleged water tank scam unlike in the Luis Berger case. “I will think on it (applying for anticipatory bail),”he said when media questioned him whether he would seek anticipatory bail in the recent case. Reacting to the FIR registered against him in the said water tank case, he said, “ I came to know about it only through the media. I had no knowledge of it. The water tanks were brought and distributed to the poor people. The technical section had to complete the formalities. A minister cannot be blamed. If there are any lapses in documentation, the engineers have to be blamed and taken to task. Not the minister.”
He said that the “then MLA Damodar Naik had asked for tanks, I told him to complete the formalities, which he could not. Vijai Sardesai, who was not the MLA at that time, had followed the procedure and he was given 200 tanks to be distributed to the poor people of Fatorda, who were in dire need it. The issue was raised by Naik in the assembly and I had explained to him. I thought the matter ended there, but it is surprising that the BJP government is now reopening the case after 8 years.”
“The BJP government is never involved in corruption. None of the BJP MLAs are in corruption. The BJP is free of corruption. Only their opposition is corrupt,” Alemao said sarastically.
