“My name is deliberately being dragged into the housing scam. I’m not aware if any of my relatives had flats in the housing society as they would have sought membership in the society in their individual capacities. The complete lists of the occupants of the flats in the society are not known as most of them have not taken possession of their flats. Once the details are available I would be in a position to comment further. However, the land of the society is still in the possession of the state government,” Chavan said.

Earlier the chief minister stated that he would look into the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society scam issue and that he has ordered the Mumbai Collector Chandrashekhar Oke to furnish him a detailed report on the status of the land and the title, particularly whether it belonged to the Revenue Department or the Defense Ministry.

According to state Congress sources, the housing scam has embarrassed the Congress party President Sonia Gandhi, who had summoned the federal Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Defense Minister A.K. Anthony — the party in-charge for Maharashtra, for consultations. Chavan’s position as the state chief minister must have been discussed, the sources said.

A senior Congress leader speaking to Arab News on condition of anonymity said, “The housing scam could really hurt Chavan. When the prime location land in the suburb of Colaba in south Mumbai was sold to the Adarsh Housing Society, Chavan was the revenue minister at that time, and his father the late Shankarrao Chavan the federal defense minister. Therefore, the involvement of the father-son duo in the housing society scam cannot be ruled out. Our party President Sonia Gandhi has taken the issue of the defense land being sold directly to the promoters and developers very seriously and therefore has summoned Mukherjee and Anthony to her office to discuss the issue,” he said.

The meeting between Mukherjee, Anthony and Sonia lasted for over two hours and they are reported to have discussed the Adarsh housing scam in detail and the political repercussions it would have on the party, particularly when the Congress is engaged in a fierce battle with the opposition parties including its coalition partner the National Congress Party (NCP) in the Kalyan-Dombivili and Kolhapur Municipal Corporation polls, which are scheduled to be held shortly.

Several politicians including those from the opposition parties, serving and retired bureaucrats, diplomats, army and naval officers are in possession of the prized land doled out to the society at very cheap rate.