Adarsh Society Scam demands answers from political leaders

Maharshtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavans offer to resign is nothing but a feeble attempt at damage control. There is sufficient evidence suggestive of impropriety, if not clear complicity, on the part of the Chief Minister in the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society scam.

If Mr Chavan indeed wanted to take a righteous stand, he should have resigned in the first place and waited for his name to be cleared, rather than put the ball in the high commands court.

The Congress party is resorting to its usual delaying tactics as is evident in the appointment of a two member committee comprising Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister A. K. Antony. If the Central Bureau of Investigation is already probing the case, why does the Congress need to conduct its own inquiry? The party should have asked Mr Chavan to step down as soon as the scam was unearthed.

However, Mr Chavan cannot be made the individual scapegoat in the scam in which the names of former Army chiefs N. C. Vij and Deepak Kapoor, former Navy chief Madhavendra Singh, Shiv Sena leaders Kanhaiyalal Gidwani and Suresh Prabhu, and NCP leader Babasaheb Kupekar also figure.

It is shameful that people who have occupied high public offices have usurped land meant for the widows of the Kargil War.