Chandigarh,October 23
The slugfest between UT Administrator and Punjab Governor SF Rodrigues and Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Water Resources Pawan Bansal intensified today with the latter pointing an accusing finger at the Administrator's role in the allotment of land for the controversial mega projects.

Union Cabinet Minister Pawan Bansal addresses a press conference at his residence in Sector 28, Chandigarh. Tribune photo: Manoj Mahajan

The minister and Chandigarh MP demanded a “detailed inquiry” into the land deals in the wake of audit objections from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) recommending a CBI probe into them. “Let the inquiry also probe my role in the the allotment process," Bansal told reporters here.

In his first reaction to Rodrigues' allegations against him and another Union Minister Ambika Soni in a section of the Press about the allotment of land to the DPS Society in Sector 40, Bansal alleged that Rodrigues was “resorting to mud-slinging” at the end of his five-year term as he was “desperate to salvage his image”. “The false allegations levelled against me are ravings and rantings of a frustrated man who stands exposed and discredited," Bansal declared.

Rodrigues' recent interview to a national daily where he levelled serious allegations against Bansal and Soni kicked up a storm. “Bansal was offended when I pointed out serious irregularities in the land allotment to the DPS society which is headed by Ambika Soni's husband,” Rodrigues had claimed in the interview.

“It has Soni and Bansal as vice-chairpersons and their family members as directors. This automatically put me in collision course with both Bansal and Soni. From then onwards, I was seen as a potential threat to their business interests," the Administrator had alleged.

Refuting Rodrigues' allegations, Bansal asserted that husband,” Rodrigues had claimed in the interview.

“It has Soni and Bansal as vice-chairpersons and their family members as directors. This automatically put me in collision course with both Bansal and Soni. From then onwards, I was seen as a potential threat to their business interests," the Administrator had alleged.

Refuting Rodrigues' allegations, Bansal asserted that the Administrator was resorting to falsehoods to “salvage” his image after irregularities were disclosed by the MHA audit report and the CVC ordered a CBI probe into two of Chandigarh mega projects — the Film City and the Amusement Park.

Alleging that the Administrator's “questionable actions” to dispose of prime land to big corporates at abysmally low rates put the state exchequer to a loss of Rs 2,000 crore, Bansal claimed that he had written letters to the Governor on the acquisition of land at “abysmally low rates" and their sale to big corporate houses “for a song".

“People of Chandigarh deserved to know why the Administrator reduced rates of land for allotting it to private land developers,” he said. “The entire country was witnessing a hike in real estate prices but the Administrator was applying some inverse mathematical formula."

There was no stopping the usually suave and composed Bansal who went on to say that Rodrigues was treating the city as a “personal fiefdom” and appeared to be “suffering from megalomania”. “I found him, very early into the Administrator's term, wholly intolerant and contemptuous of any suggestion given to him," he added

To a pointed query whether Rodrigues was UPA's wrong choice for governorship, Bansal said seeing his five-years of “disastrous performance”, it now appeared that the Congress had erred in offering him the gubernatorial assignment.