At an AICC briefing here, party spokesperson Ajoy Kumar, however, feigned ignorance about the interview by Chavan which is at the heart of the matter.
"I have not seen it (the interview). Therefore it is not proper for me to make a comment on it," Kumar told reporters.
Although a senior Congress functionary did acknowledge that he was "flummoxed" upon reading the remarks by Chavan in the interview, he refused to go on record with his views on the issue.
In an interview to an English daily, Chavan reportedly said, "Adarsh brought under the scanner Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sushilkumar Shinde and Ashok Chavan -- the top Congress leadership in the state. If I had taken action against them, the party would have been decimated in Maharashtra.
"If I had sent them to jail, it would have hit the party organisation... The party would have split. Nobody articulated that openly then. Neither could I.