NEW DELHI: It was a political double strike executed with surgical precision. US Air Force One, with the Obamas on board, took off from the technical area of Palam airport at 8:54 Tuesday morning - 11 minutes later, at 9:05, a Congress spokesman broke the news that Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan's offer of resignation had been accepted and he had been asked to submit his letter to the governor, pending investigation. Twenty minutes later, at 9:25, the party announced that Commonwealth Games boss Suresh Kalmadi had resigned from his post as secretary of the Congress Parliamentary Party.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi had ensured that the two men, both from Maharashtra, who had caused the party grave embarrassment by their acts of impropriety were gone - less than two hours before Parliament convened for its winter session. It indicated Congress's anxiety to quell the perception that corruption was not being punished as well as its desire to pre-empt an Opposition blockade of Parliament. The Congress was clearly waiting for the Obama visit to end before accepting the resignation Chavan had offered on October 29.
Chavan's ouster comes on the heels of a series of reports in The Times of India, beginning October 25, detailing how top generals, bureaucrats and politicians had cornered prime real estate in Mumbai that was meant for war veterans, including Kargil heroes, and how the chief minister's mother-in-law and two relatives had been allotted flats valued in the market at about Rs 8 crores in the 31-storey building named Adarsh that had come up on the ill-gotten land in flagrant violation of environmental laws.
The Times of India
