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Tehelka.com Monday alleged it was Gopal Pacherwal, Rajasthan Samata Party president, who received money at former defence minister George Fernandes' residence during its undercover operations.
The portal had earlier claimed that its investigating team member Mathew Samuel had paid money to Samata Party Minister Srinivas Prasad on the instructions of former party President Jaya Jaitly, a charge denied by her on the grounds that Prasad was not even in the room.
Conceding that it had made a "slip-up" earlier, the website said in an article Monday, "The tehelka.com journalist had never seen Prasad before and had presumed that Gopal Pacherwal, also unknown to him, was Prasad - and Jaitly had, after all, told him to hand over the money to Prasad."
Jaitly was shown on the secretly filmed tape as saying, "send it (money) to Mr Srinivas Prasad."
"Pacherwal has been kept under strict guard. He has virtually been in hiding since the Tehelka story broke. Only he, Jaitly and her inner coterie knew all along that it was Pacherwal who had taken the money from Samuel as a conduit to Srinivas Prasad, who was busy organising the National Council meet of the Samata Party in Bangalore," the portal alleged.
The website, however, said Pacherwal was not fully captured by its camera as its field of vision was limited to a frontal view while he was on the right side of the room.
Jaitly was not immediately available for comment.
PTI
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