the goan I network
MARGAO
Will the chargesheet filed by Crime Branch against former Chief Minister and five-time Margao MLA Digambar Kamat affect his chances of getting the Congress nomination for the Margao seat?
When this question was posted to Digambar moments after the CB filed the chargesheet in court on Thursday, the Margao MLA said he does not think so, saying that a chargesheet is only the charges levelled by an investigating agency and only a trial will decide whether one is guilty of the offences or not.
“There may be hundreds of chargesheets filed and pending against people. Whether one is guilty of the charges or not is known only after a trial by the courts,” Kamat said, while asserting that a chargesheet cannot decide on the question whether
one is entitled to get a party ticket or not.
This question has been asked in political circles against the backdrop of All India Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh reiterating in the case of former PWD Minister Churchill Alemao that the Congress can open the doors for him only after the court clears him in the Louis Berger bribery scandal case.
Meanwhile, Kamat reiterated that he is innocent in the case and is falsely implicated by the investigating agency. “From day one, I have been saying that I am not in any way connected with the Louis Berger case. And, I would like to say it again that I am not involved in the case,” he told The Goan.
The Margao MLA said that he has faith in God and the judiciary and exuded confidence that justice would be done to him.
The chargesheet against Kamat has come a day before the Diwali festival scheduled on Saturday and three days after his candidate Deepa Shirodkar inflicted a crushing defeat on the BJP-backed candidate in the by-election for Ward No 21 of the Margao Municipal Council.
“I really do not know whether the Crime Branch has decided to file the chargesheet against me three days after my candidate defeated the BJP-backed candidate in the MMC by-poll,” he said, when pointed out that the chargesheet has come after months of investigations into the Louis Berger case.
Incidentally, Kamat was holed up in Panaji when news spread that the Margao MLA has been chargesheeted in the Louis Berger bribery case. In fact, there was not much movement of supporters at his Malbhat office-cum-residence on Thursday evening.
