Ranjan ready to cooperate with Centaur selloff probe

A day after the CPI(M) alleged links between Ranjan Bhattacharya and the AL Batra Group, which bought the Airport Centaur hotel in Mumbai, a statement from Bhattacharya's lawyers said he welcomed a probe into the allegations and would fully cooperate to clear his name.

Speaking through his lawyers, Bhattacharya, the son-in-law of former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee, said he had no business relations with AL Batra and that the common director, Kulbhushan Kachru, was a nominee of the Carlson group.

"At the outset, my client categorically denies having any business relationship whatsoever with Batra (of Batra Hospitality), and also in any way having anything at all to do with the disinvestment process of Centaur Hotel or otherwise," Bhattachary's lawyer said in a statement to a news agency.

"The common director namely Kachru who is on the board of AB Hotels and on the board of the two joint ventures belonging to my clients, is there by virtue of being a Carlson nominee," it said. The CPI(M) had cited these two instances as evidence pointing to links between Batra and Bhattacharya.

CPI(M) MP Dipankar Mukherjee had demanded that the on-going Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the issue take cognisance of this new evidence.

The statement said Bhattacharya, a hotelier by profession, "began his business relationship with Carlson Hospitality world-wide well prior to the NDA government headed by Vajpayee came into power in April 1999."

"The Carlson Group has a gross turnover of over $32 billion and has over 1,000 hotels in its portfolio world-wide, and one such hotel happens to be the Delhi Radisson owned by AB Hotels," it said.