Let CBI probe George-Telgi links: MPs write to PM

With battlelines drawn, several ministers are ferreting out information about the acts of commission and omission of their predecessors. ‘‘If that is the way they want to play the game, and they are behaving very undemocratically, then let it be a no-holds barred fight,’’ said a senior minister in UPA.

In their missive to the PM, the 54 MPs — belonging to the CPI, CPI(M), RJD, NCP, Congress, RSP, Forward Block — has said that Fernandes attended three functions at the invitation of the Kisan Trust headed by Gote of which Telgi was a trustee, on November 11, 1997, July 3, 1999 and on May 16, 2003. This was despite the fact that Telgi had been declared an absconder in 1995 itself. What’s more, the letter said, Telgi had given Gote’s home address as his own in the Kisan Trust deed.

Rejecting Fernandes’ explanation in Parliament earlier this month that he did not know either Telgi or Gote, the signatories have requested the PM to hand over the matter to the CBI. Fernandes had said he had gone to Dhule to visit Kargil martyr Suryavanshi’s home, but RJD sources said their enquiries had revealed that the former Defence Minister had not visited his house.