Congress general secretary and former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh was on Tuesday stopped from holding a press conference in Madhya Pradesh Assembly's press room by the Speaker, holding that the facility was not available to outsiders.
Surprisingly, the orders in this regard were issued on Tuesday only. After watching the proceedings of the House from the Speaker's Gallery, Singh had plans to hold a press meet on the MPPEB scam later, but as he reached the media room, a marshal served him the order from Speaker Sitasharan Sharma.
The Speaker issued the order through Principal Secretary Bhagwandev Israni, stating that no outsider would be allowed to hold press meet in the Assembly complex. "Except a Minister or a member of the House, no outsiders will be allowed to address press meet inside the Assembly," the order stated.
The Assembly's day-long session was on Tuesday convened to pass the supplementary budget as the House was earlier adjourned sine die following ruckus by Congress members on the issue of MPPEB scam.
Though the State's annual budget was passed by voice vote then, the Government was unable to present supplementary budget for the rest of the financial year.
On getting the order, Singh first went to another press room on the first floor and later walked out of the Vidhan Sabha to address mediapersons on the MPPEB scam. "How can they describe a five-time Assembly member, two-term Chief Minister as an outsiderIJ This way they cannot silence the voice of Digvijay Singh," the Congress leader said.
When asked whether this reflected the beginning of an Emergency-like situation, Singh said, "It is a beginning. But before that they will also silence the voice of the media."
Singh said that he had submitted the report of Bengaluru-based renowned Truth lab, whose findings are even accepted by the Supreme Court and the High Court on the alleged tampering of hard disk seized by police from MPPEB office.
He alleged that Indore police officials have tampered with the hard disk data by removing the name of the Chief Minister mentioned at 48 places in the original Excel sheet.
Digvijay misleading probe: Min
Hitting back at Congress general secretary and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, senior Minister of the State Cabinet and spokesman of the State Government Narottam Mishra said that Singh is trying to mislead the investigation in the MPPEB scam by spreading misconceptions. Mishra said that Singh is trying to mislead the people by different ways in the MPPEB scam.
Earlier he was presenting an Excel sheet and now he is presenting a pen drive. "Singh needs to answer many questions over the allegations leveled by him in the MPPEB scam. Earlier he was saying that he has the hard disk and now why this pen drive was sent to a Bangluru's private lab for investigation." He said that why Singh is not providing the information that from where the files were copied in the pen drive and that how could it be proved on behalf of pen drive that hard disc was tampered with.