Former Urban Development Minister and senior leader of Samajwadi Party, Mohammad Azam Khan, has accused the Yogi Adityanath government of vendetta.
Azam Khan has been indicted by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of serious corruption charges during the recruitment in UP Jal Nigam. He was chairman of UP Jal Nigam at the time of recruitment of 122 assistant engineers, 853 junior engineers and 430 clerks. The appointment of assistant engineers was quashed by the Allahabad High Court in August 2017.
“I have done nothing wrong. I have committed no sin. I provided employment to the educated unemployed youths. There is no stain on my political career. The Bharatiya Janata Party government is trying to malign my image by levelling fake and baseless charges,” Azam Khan said in Rampur on Friday.
He added: “The state government is trying to smear my image. I have been left with no option but to reply to the allegations.”
lashing out at the BJP governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh, the former minister said that instead of providing employment to youths, the government was making them jobless. “There has been a phenomenal rise in unemployment in the BJP rule,” he said.
Criticising the SIT probe, Khan said: “I have the blessings of the youths who were given jobs during the SP regime. When the SP returns to power, the government will again give jobs to the unemployed.”
Majority of the youths who were recruited on various posts in the Jal Nigam belong to poor families and only a few were Muslims, whose parents do menial jobs to earn a living, he said.
Khan said that as a minister, he had established a university, a medical college and a school in Rampur to provide education to youths.
“Majority of these students come from lower-middle class and have won laurels in various national competitions,” the SP leader said. The SIT in January last had summoned Azam Khan, the then secretary of Urban Development Department SP Singh, former managing director of UP Jal Nigam PK Ashudani and a few others in connection with the probe into irregularities in the recruitment.
Earlier this week, the SIT indicted Azam Khan in the report submitted to the state government. The SIT, in its report, said there was enough evidence against Azam Khan and others for initiating criminal proceedings against them.
The SIT has sought the permission for initiating criminal proceedings against the accused. A committee comprising Principal Secretary (Home), DG (SIT) and Principal Secretary (Urban Development) will take a decision on the SIT report and request.
During the investigation, the SIT also detected that the state government had provided a loan of Rs 300 crore to the UP Jal Nigam for disbursement of salaries and other expenses on the condition that no recruitment would be made without the prior approval of the state. However, soon after getting the loan amount, the Jal Nigam authorities went ahead with the recruitment without prior approval of the state government.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav came to the rescue of his senior colleague saying “the state government has unleashed vendetta against its political rivals and Azam Khan, who has a clean and impeccable record, is being targeted by the government to malign his image”.
Akhilesh added, “Azam Khan had nothing to do with the recruitments in UP Jal Nigam and the canard against senior SP leaders shows that politics in the BJP rule has touched a new low in Uttar Pradesh.”
