Buoyed by his renomination from Chandigarh seat, former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal today hit out at his detractors saying they had made it their "pastime to target me" and saw a "conspiracy" behind the "taint" charge.
"It was a conspiracy against me. This conspiracy should have been over eight months ago. After eight months of probe, when no proof was found against me, the chargesheet did not name me, still some people, who consider themselves to be the well wishers of the nation have targeted me," the former Union Minister said sarcastically.
"In fact some people had made it their pastime to target me but they will get their answers...I was confident of this for the last ten months because I am staying in Chandigarh and I am not in Delhi for the last ten months. I meet people, I go for functions, we organise functions," he said.
There was speculation that Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari, who is presently an MP from Ludhiana, was eyeing the Chandigarh seat.
The speculation gained ground as Tewari repeatedly stressed that those having "taint" should not be given tickets and that the party should not get into legalities and instead "not give tickets to those who are facing even allegations of corruption".
The two leaders are said to be having old rivalry in Punjab politics.
However, Tewari later dismissed as "completely unfounded" the speculation that he was reluctant to contest from Ludhiana Lok Sabha seat maintaining that he had already conveyed to Congress leadership about his willingness to be fielded from the constituency.
"It is absolutely erroneous, the speculation was completely unfounded. It was devoid of any merit. I had contested in 2004 in Ludhiana. I lost by a narrow margin.
"I worked in the constituency for five years, won in 2009 by the highest margin and have conveyed it to the leadership that I am more than willing, more than prepared, because I have worked in my constituency to re-contest from Ludhiana," he said.
Tewari said while it was for his party's Central Election Committee to decide, he was "unambiguously "clear in his mind that he wanted to contest from Ludhiana.
