Samata says its minister wasn't present in city, received no money

Samata says its minister wasn't present in city, received no money
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NEW DELHI, MARCH 21: The Samata Party today debunked the claim of Tehelka.com that an amount of Rs 2 lakh was paid to it, saying that Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution V.Sreenivasa Prasad was not present in Delhi on the day he was supposed to have received the money on instructions from party chief Jaya Jaitly.

``There is neither money nor anyone receiving it,'' Samata Party leader and Agriculture Minister Nitish Kumar, who is now also handling the Railways portfolio, told reporters here in the presence of Prasad.

According to the tapes, Kumar recalled, Jaitly had asked the two Tehelka journalists that the money be handed over to Prasad who was present in the room where the conversation had taken place on December 28 last year.

According to him, the reality was that Prasad was not only not present in theroom but was also away from the Capital. He had left Delhi on December 23 andstayed in Mysore for his party's national council meeting held on January 8 and 9. Subsequently, he had taken ill and was admitted in hospital in Bangalore only to return to Delhi on February 18.

``If the money was not given to Prasad, where did it go?'' Kumar said, maintaining that Prasad's absence from Delhi had rendered the Tehelka claim suspect. On finding that Prasad was not present in Delhi that day, Tehelka was now trying to say that it could have been some other man sitting there in the room.