An aide of Member of Parliament Suresh Kalmadi, who has been lodged in Tihar jail for over two months in connection with the multi-crore Commonwealth Games scam, on Wednesday claimed that he had not shown any signs of mental ailment and appeared alert.
"Kalmadi had signed and sent a communication to the Pune district planning council sanctioning the sum of Rs 1.45 crore from the MP's fund on July 13, which indicated his level of alertness," said Pune Congress president Abhay Chhajed, a close associate of Kalmadi.
The money, among other things, would be utilised for facilitating more public toilets for women in the city.
"Kalmadi has not claimed that he is suffering from dementia. An MRI test cannot establish such an occurrence," Chhajed said.
Meanwhile, city Bharatiya Janata Party president Vikas Mathkari has demanded resignation of the tainted Congress MP, saying Kalmadi should have made his ailment public and informed the Election Commission about it while contesting the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.
Sources in a hospital in Delhi had recently said that Kalmadi was suffering from "diffused cerebral atrophy with old ischemic changes in brain parenchyma with calcified granuloma in caudothalamic groove on left side (of his brain)."
Tihar Jail authorities have sent the MRI report of the 66-year-old MP to AIIMS for an expert opinion.
The family members of Kalmadi had submitted his medical records to the Tihar prison authorities, claiming he was suffering from dementia at a preliminary stage along with brain infarct.
