With the Centre seeking to tighten the noose around Harish Rawat by unleashing the CBI into the sting CD episode, the former Chief Minister, Harish Rawat, seemingly unfazed, threw the gauntlet down to the Centre, asking it to probe the episode in all its details while talking to the media at Bijapur Guest House on Saturday. The sting CD circulated on March 26, a day before the President’s Rule was imposed on the State, purportedly showed Harish Rawat offering money to the rebel Congress MlAs in a bid to bring them back.
“If the Governor has recommended CBI inquiry into sting CD as prodded by BJP, I would like to appeal to the Governor to have all the aspects of the episide thoroughly probed. I am ready to go to jail if found guilty, but it must be ensured that all those involved in it must face the consequences squarely too. Unless this happens and I am singled out it would amount to travesty of justice,” he said.
He also said, probe should be ordered into all the graft charges that have been plaguing the State since the time the interim Government assumed charge in 2000 around the time when Uttrakhand was being carved out of Uttar Pradesh.
“I have no inhibition to CBI probing all the charges of financial irregularities that are supposed to have happened when I was at the helm of the State. The air must be cleared once and for all. This is far better than the rivals crossing swords in the darkness. However, I am of the view that instead of things focused on me, all the corruption charges that the State faced since its inception should be probed too and the responsibilities should be fixed,” he said.
However, in the same breath, he said the CBI recommendation is ill-timed, given the fact that the Supreme Court is now looking into the matter concerning Uttarakhand. “This unearthly haste is what is triggering suspicion,” he said.
Citing the graft charges raised by BJP when Vijay Bahuguna was the CM, Rawat said they should be probed too. “We can vividly remember how BJP created ruckus in the Assembly and stopped its proceedings while raising graft charges against then CM Bahuguna,” he said, adding, sarcastically, that they were now the same boat brothers.
Going back to the time when fledgling Uttarakhand was coming to terms with the reality of statehood, the ex-CM said a charge had been raised then against an influential leader encroaching lands. The graft charge was known by the name Choukori (Berinaag) which came into focus between November 2000 - March 2002, he reminded.
Dwelling on the sting CD that is supposed to have hastened the pace of things, resulting in the dismissal of his government, Rawat said the maker of the CD Umesh Sharma, mentioned there as ‘Bhupesh Upadhyay’, is close to the senior BJP leader Vijay Vergees and to Saket Bahuguna, the son of Vijay Bahuguna. “The blueprint of the operation to topple my government was given the final shape after Umesh Sharma met the Vergees and Saket. If things are thoroughly probed more startling things would definitely come out in full public view,” the ex-CM said.
Citing the CD, Rawat further said that Sharma had called Saket a professional and said he had been responsible for the end of the Vijay Bahuguna regime. “As per Sharma as heard in the CD, Vijay Bahuguna had nothing to do with the CD and his son had masterminded the operation,” Rawat said. “Are we to believe that Saket was operating the mighty syndicate right from the CM residence with his father being kept in the background,” he asked.
He also cited the murkiness hanging over the CD as far as the amount proposed to strike the deal is concerned. “Umesh Sharma is heard saying he is ready to give 15 to each of the rebel MlAs. What did he mean by itIJ Was it money he meantIJ If it were so the question is from where could he conjure up money to buy the rebels backIJ” Harish Rawat asked. Rawat said the Governor should have things probed as to why the former BJP CM Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank had lodged a case against the maker of the CD Sharma and why the case had been withdrawn when Vijay Bahuguna was the CM. “I do not mind being probed. What I demand is that none involved in it should be spared the probe,” he asserted.