Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal today took on the Opposition and alleged that it had relied on a forged letter to implicate him in the Telgi scam. Opposition leaders Narayan Rane and Eknath Khadse had produced a letter in the Assembly last week, allegedly written by former Mumbai police official Dilip Kamath which said that Abdul Karim Telgi lived in luxury even when he was in custody, due to Bhujbal and his nephew Sameer’s intervention. Today, in his attempt to prove the letter was forged, Bhujbal displayed two samples of Kamath’s handwriting — a copy of an entry made by him in a case diary in 1999 and his handwritten statement to the MCOCA Court in Pune. ‘‘There’s a difference in handwriting in these documents and the letter produced by Opposition in the Assembly,’’ Bhujbal told mediapersons. ‘‘The letter appears to be forged.It’s like a conspiracy is being hatched to frame me,’’ Bhujbal said. Rane and Khadse had distributed copies of the letter on December 12, saying Kamath had sent it to the Governor. The letter (dated November 30) alleged that Kamath had kept Telgi in comfort on Bhujbal’s instructions. However, Bhujbal produced another letter by Kamath, dated August 4, 2003, wherein he accused DIG Jaiswal of pressurising him to implicate Sameer in the scam. Kamath also alleged that the SIT officer had asked MLA Anil Gote to submit an affidavit saying Telgi gave Rs 54 lakh for MLAs in 2002. Rane, meanwhile, was not available for comment. State BJP president Gopinath Munde refused to comment: ‘‘I can’t say till I have read them. Kamath may have been pressurised by Bhujbal to retract.’’ The letter was presented in the House for the Chairman to verify its details.
