How I was made DGP if I had graft charge earlier: Prakash
Former Odisha Director General of Police (DGP) Prakash Mishra, normally not the kind to make public statements that have even a whiff of controversy, on Thursday lashed out at the State Government for its act of registering a Vigilance case against him. He described the Government's move as a "conspiracy" to prevent him from becoming the CBI Director.
"It is an act of vendetta designed to scuttle my chances of becoming the CBI chief," Mishra told a television channel in a telephonic interview from New Delhi.
"I had never imagined that they would stoop so low to prevent an Odia officer from becoming the CBI chief," he remarked.
Mishra asked the State Government as to how it decided to appoint him DGP in 2012 if he was under the Vigilance scanner for his stint as the CMD of the Odisha Police Housing and Welfare Corporation (OPHWC) in 2006-2009.
"There is no mention of me anywhere in the audit report on the basis of which the case against me has been apparently registered," he pointed out. "If it was an open inquiry, why was I not given an opportunity to present my caseIJ" he asked.
He also questioned why the audit was done only for the period when he was the OPHWC CMD and not for the period of his predecessor or successor.
Mishra, who is currently the Special Secretary, Internal Security in the Union Home Ministry, said the people of Odisha know what his image is.
"They also know the image of the people holding important positions in the (State) Government," he said in an oblique reference to the ruling BJD and the bureaucracy.