I am a victim of political vendetta: Ch Jagjit

Jalandhar, May 18 (UNI) Punjab Congress leader and former Local Bodies Minister Chaudhary Jagjit Singh, a key accused in the Ludhiana City Centre scam, today made his first public appearance here after he was granted anticipatory bail by the High Court.

The former minister, who was received by a few party workers, said that he did not want to comment on the Ludhiana City Centre scam as the matter was pending in the court. ''All I want to say is that I am innocent and the case registered against me was politically motivated'', he said.

About his absence from the public life for the two-and-a-half months, he said that he was very much in Jalandhar.

The minister, however admitted that he had written a three-page letter to Sant Mehnga Dass, a local dera chief, that he was being victimized for being a scheduled cast. ''Whenever I lose elections I always become a soft target of the incumbent government. I think it is because I am a low caste. There are lot of people in the dera who support me so I have only brought the truth before them'', added the minister.

The Minister in the same note had also apprised the dera chief that the SAD-BJP government had taken no action against former Punjab Pardesh Congress Committee (PPCC), president HS Hanspal as he approached the Namdhari Sect, which in turn put a word for him. ''But since I was a low caste no one came to my support,'' he said in the letter.

UNI