Senior Congress leader and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi on Thursday said that he is not a contender for Chief Ministership in the ensuing Assembly polls in the State.
‘The decision on whether or not I should contest the Assembly elections would be taken by the Congress high command,’ he said while talking to reporters here.
Jogi alleged that there had been massive corruption in the purchase of laptops and the solar lamps by the BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh Government. ‘The laptops had been deliberately distributed to students aged 18 and above so that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could capitalise the move during coming up polls’.
The former CM said that the Congress party’s ongoing ‘Parivartan Yatra’ would certainly bring about ‘Parivartan’ (change) in Chhattisgarh.
“The ‘Parivartan Yatra’ is receiving good response and party's leaders in the state are united to bring back Congress into power,” Jogi remarked.
Referring to the mine allotment issue related to Pushp Steel, he commented. ‘One person arrives from New Delhi In Kanker and after doing his work , heads for the Mantralaya and after getting the files signed by the officials there, returns back to New Delhi the same day. There cannot be a bigger miracle than this.’
‘The Delhi High court had even directed to review the issue of mine allotment’, Jogi said.
To a question whether some central Government officials could be involved in the matter, the Congress leader observed “the matter of Pushp Steel comes under the ambit of investigation. This would separate the milk from the water in the coming days.”
He alleged that the State Government machinery is being utilised to mobilise people for the Vikas Yatra. ‘The State Highway was closed for some time during Chief Minister Raman Singh’s Vikas Yatra causing inconvenience to a large number of people, this is blatant violation of the law’, he stated.
On Congress prospects in the forthcoming polls in Bastar region, he said that if there is no incident of bogus voting, the party would bag 11 out of 12 seats. In the last poll held in 2008, Congress won just one seat in Bastar region which is made up of seven districts.
‘Helicopter is utilised to take the voter to the polling centre. The officers on poll duty get polling conducted at 8 am and return by helicopter at 11 am and they say 75 per cent of the polling took place’, he alleged.
‘The Congress had found a way to deal with this,’ he said while declining to comment further.
BJP deliberately did not let the last session of the parliament to function which had many important bills to be passed, Jogi said. Congress President Sonia Gandhi has announced that these bills including Food Bill, would now be passed through issue of ordinances, he added.