Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who is under siege from the Opposition in connection with the Vyapam scam, said that he would call upon Congress president Sonia Gandhi to clarify from her whether she has mandated Digvijay Singh and other party leaders to "malign" his image.
Chouhan while talking to media persons here on Sunday said, "I am going to write a letter to Soniaji and seek an audience with her to know whether she has given her consent to State Congress leaders, especially Digvijay, to run a baseless and totally false campaign against me and my family members."
Chouhan further said, "The dirty politics and shallow campaign based on the false and fake allegations to sully me and my wife's image should stop. Singh stands exposed as the Madhya Pradesh High Court has endorsed the Special Investigation Team's (SIT's) finding that a document submitted by a cyber expert against me as an evidence was indeed forged. Singh was running a smear campaign against me based on the very document."
The SIT is monitoring the investigation by the Special Task Force (STF) into the infamous multi-crore Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) or Vyapam scam.
In his submission before the Delhi High Court earlier, the expert named as Mr X in court record had claimed the evidence submitted by him was original and the probe should be carried out on its basis.
He had told the Delhi HC that the ongoing probe was based on a "doctored" Excel sheet as Chouhan's name was struck out from it.
The Delhi HC had then forwarded the Excel sheet and the pen drive, submitted by Mr X, to the Madhya Pradesh High Court which ordered the SIT to get them verified. The SIT in its initial report found that the Excel sheet was forged.
Digvijay, who claimed to have acquired the documents from the expert, had spearheaded the attack against Chouhan by alleging that the latter was involved in the scam and sought his resignation.