BJP Secretary Kirit Somaiya has accused Chhagan Bhujbal and his family of being involved in a series of scam; Bhujbal's son Pankaj denies all of Somaiya's claims

At a press conference hosted by Kirit Somaiya, the BJP Secretary claimed that Armstrong Energy Private Ltd, allegedly owned by current PWD minister Chhagan Bhujbal and his family, is involved in a series of scams.

According to Somaiya, the company is named Armstrong only because in English ‘Bhujbal’ would mean strong arms, as ‘bhuj(a)’ in Marathi means arms and ‘bal’ means strength. “I am not joking this is serious. They named the company Armstrong only for this reason,” said Somaiya.
 After targeting NCP minister Sunil Tatkare, Somaiya has trained his gun on Bhujbal. He showed a series of documents to the Chief Minister on Friday evening and the governor yesterday to prove his claims. The BJP National Secretary says that the CM and governor both assured him that the matter will be dealt with in an unbiased manner.

His documents also reveal that investors in the company have been creating fake addresses, many of which are not even registered. “Many investor companies that bought shares of the company have given invalid addresses. We visited a few addresses and found that these are in residential buildings occupied by people who have never heard of the company names that have been registered on their addresses,” added Somaiya.

According to him, many companies that have invested in Armstrong Energy aren’t even registered with the company boards and many have been blacklisted by SEBI. “The registered mails we sent them have returned unopened. Many investors have been involved in hawala transactions. I even fear that Bhujbal has a Swiss Bank account,” he revealed.

Shares worth Rs 100 were bought at a premium of up to Rs 9,900 per share, Somaiya claimed. “Who gives 100 per cent over the price for shares of a company, which has already suffered losses of Rs 12 crore in the last fiscal year?” he questioned.

Repeated attempts to get in touch with Bhujbal proved futile. However, his son Pankaj Bhujbal said, “Somaiya is making false allegations against us. Whatever we have done or are doing is in the public domain. There’s no hawala involvement; we have clarified it earlier. There’s nothing illegal about our company. Somaiya has produced misleading figures. We are right in our business.”