I didn't meet Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi's claim 'baseless': Ashok Chavan

Mumbai: A day after Rahul Gandhi said that a Congress leader from Maharashtra met his mother Sonia Gandhi, wept and left the party after falling prey to the tactics of the BJP’s use of central agencies, veteran politician Ashok Chavan issued a vehement denial.

Mid-February, Chavan (65), a former two-time Maharashtra chief minister and ex-president of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee, left the grand old party to join the BJP and in days became a Rajya Sabha member.

Addressing the rally of the I.N.D.I.A. opposition bloc, Gandhi said: “Let me tell you…a senior leader from Maharashtra, who I do not want to name, left Congress and cried in front of my mother and said 'Sonia ji, I am ashamed that I don't have the power to fight this ‘shakti’… I do not want to go to jail…Thousands of people have been threatened like this.”

Gandhi, the Wayanad MP, however, did not name Chavan, who was once said to be among those closest to the Gandhi family and was considered a die-hard loyalist. Incidentally, Chavan’s father late Shankarrao Chavan had been a former Maharashtra Chief Minister and former Union minister having handled portfolios like home, defence, and finance besides being the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission.

Rattled by Gandhi’s statement, Chavan, however, decided to present the facts. “I have not met Sonia Gandhi,” Chavan said.

"It is baseless (to say) that I met Sonia Gandhi and expressed my emotions. It is a political statement from the election point of view," Chavan.

"But if he is saying that about me, then it is illogical and baseless. The truth is that till I resigned from the Congress, I was working at the party headquarters. I resigned from the post of MLA and a few moments later resigned from the party also. Till then, no one knew that I had resigned,” he said.

According to Chavan, leaving Congress and joining BJP was his personal decision. “No one asked me to join the BJP. Till the last minute, I was with my ex-colleagues. But the circumstances were such that I had to take this decision for inclusive growth under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," he said.