PANAJI
Congress leader Girish Chodankar has refuted as "baseless" the allegations levelled against him and other Congress leaders, including cash-for-tickets, by his former protege and Mormugao MLA, Sankalp Amonkar, who was part of the group of eight MLAs who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Chodankar, who was GPCC president at the time of the February Assembly elections, said Amonkar has read a script of the BJP before media persons aimed at tarnishing the image of tall Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi.
In a press release, Chodankar said Amonkar's body language during the press conference where he made the charges gives him away and established that he has surrendered his soul to the BJP for a ministerial berth.
Amonkar was a close associate of Chodankar and the latter has expressed shock over the former's betrayal of the party.
“Despite Sankalp Amonkar losing twice, we promoted him for a third time and Rahul Gandhi personally canvassed for him house to house," Chodankar said, adding that it took Amonkar 15 years to realise, that too within 48 hours of joining BJP, that Gandhi had no vision.
Chodankar said, the tactics of the BJP leadership to use the services of 'converted people' to derail Congress’ ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ led by Rahul Gandhi will not yield any results.
"Amonkar‘s attack on Congress leaders K C Venugopal ji and Dinesh Gundu Rao ji is completely baseless and far from reality," adding that Venugopal never interfered in any of the decisions he is referring to.
Amonkar had alleged that Venugopal and Gundu Rao had amassed large amounts of money by "selling" assembly election tickets.
