Title - ‘Bansal knew about bribe exchange’

Senior leader and chairman of the National Legal Group of BJP Satya Pal Jain on Sunday briefed the executive committee of the party regarding the involvement of former Railways minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and his family members in the railway bribery scam.

Senior leaders of party, including BJP president Rajnath Singh, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, senior leaders Dr Murli Manohar Joshi and Venkaiah Naidu, among others, were present at the meeting held at the residence of L K Advani.

Bansal's nephew Vijay Singla was arrested by the CBI on May 3 while accepting Rs 90 lakh bribe from Mahesh Kumar, a member of the Railway Board allegedly for his promotion.

Jain referred to the various documents which form part of the CBI chargesheet in the scam, to show that Bansal had complete knowledge regarding the payment and receipt of the bribe. He alleged that the two accused, Mahesh Kumar and Vijay Singla, were constantly in touch with the sons of Bansal, including through phone calls made and received at his official residence. He also brought to their notice that they were regularly talking to each other right upto 5 PM on May 3 when the raids were conducted by CBI.

Jain told the central leadership that the accused persons were constantly mentioning the names of UPA chief Sonia Gandhi, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Ahmed Patel in their conversations.

He also informed them that the recording of the conversations between Bansal, Singla and Mahesh Kumar are not available on record in the CBI chargesheet and its seems this has been done to save him from prosecution.

The matter is likely to be raised in Parliament in the coming days.