Stating that Shivraj Singh Chouhan does not know the meaning of ‘whistleblower’, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh today said the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister’s proposed yatra over the Vyapam scam is an attempt to protect those involved in it.
Singh took the dig at Chouhan as the Congress stepped up its campaign against the BJP Government in the State over the Vyapam scam by organising a State-wide bandh.
While talking to media persons, Digvijay Singh said, “Shivraj doesn’t know the meaning of the term whistleblower and his proposed statewide yatra on the issue of Vyapam is an attempt to protect those involved in the scam.”
He was responding to a question on the BJP’s proposed yatra (march) in the State projecting Chouhan as the one who exposed the scam by ordering a probe into it. The BJP State unit is planning to organise a yatra to be led by Chouhan over Vyapam scam in August, the date for which is yet to be finalised.
The petitions filed by Digvijay and two whistle-blowers Dr Anand Rai and Ashish Chaturvedi in the Supreme Court had resulted in the apex court ordering a CBI probe into the high-profile scam. The State Government had also requested the court to hand over the probe into the scam to the Central agency.
Meanwhile, Singh along with Congress workers went around the old city market areas to urge people to observe the bandh to press for Chouhan’s resignation on the issue. He demanded that all students accused in the scam be made Government witnesses in the case as they were victims of middlemen.
“All those students who are accused in the scam should be made Government witnesses as their parents were lured by middlemen into paying the money on the promise that nothing happens without shelling out rupees,” he alleged.
“But the BJP Government, in order to protect those involved in the scam, did not arrest those middlemen involved in it and instead arrested the students and their parents,” he said, adding, “We will raise this issue in the Supreme Court also and demand that all of them should be made Government witnesses in the case.”
The Chief Minister should resign till the CBI is probing the Vyapam scam, the Congress leader said.
He said that it is wrong to think of a fair investigation till he (Chouhan) is there as Chief Minister. If he doesn’t resign it will show that he intends to affect the probe.
The Congress had called the strike to protest over the Vyapam scam, which it claims was successful with no untoward incident being reported from anywhere. A few other parties also supported the strike across the State.
Shops were closed in the Capital Bhopal and the adjoining cities on Thursday. Very few public transport buses and auto-rickshaws plied.
A 40-member team under the supervision of CBI Joint Director RP Aggarwal initiated its probe into the Vyapam scam on Monday.
Vyapam (Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal) conducts recruitment and entrance exams not conducted by the Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission. The Vyapam scam came to light in 2013 and has since assumed mind-boggling proportions, leading to the arrest of nearly 2,100 people. Nearly 40 people linked in some way or other to the scam have died.