Tapes are forged: Ajit Jogi

Outgoing Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi on Saturday night flatly denied ever making efforts to break the BJP legislature party to prevent it from forming the government.

Also Read BJP comes up with tape on Ajit Jogi Congress suspends Ajit Jogi

Earlier, Union law Minister Arun Jaitley had played a tape in which a man, purportedly Jogi, was making plans with another man to break up the BJP. The other man, Jaitley said, was BJP MLA Virendra Pandey who recorded the conversation to trap Jogi.

Talking to mediapersons in his official residence in Raipur, Jogi said the tapes are forged. He said the voice was not his.

He admitted Pandey had met him seeking support for efforts to make an adivasi the chief minister and that he had given a letter extending Congress support to the efforts, but without the permission of party president Sonia Gandhi as she could not be contacted.

He claimed that Pandey had met him in his official residence some time on Saturday evening.

He denied knowledge of the party suspending him and said he would be meeting the party president on Sunday to discuss the issue.