The Congress and BJP on Monday traded charges on alleged involvement of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the MP Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) recruitment scam. While the Congress claimed that evidences were manipulated to remove the CM’s name from the incriminating documents, the BJP hit back saying the evidences were baseless and aimed at maligning the image of the Chief Minister.
All the bigwigs of Congress Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath, Suresh Pachouri, Jyotiraditya Scindia, MP’s leader of opposition Satyadev Katare and PCC Chief Arun Yadav addressed media persons here at the PCC headquarters where they claimed the probe was compromised and demanded the resignation of the CM.
Digvijay’s lawyer KTS Tulsi and former Advocate General of MP Vivek Tankha also addressed the press conference explaining legal aspects in the investigation of MPPEB exam scam. The Congress leaders alleged that the Chief Minister’s name was removed from an excel sheet related to the MPPEB scam.
Rejecting their accusations, Madhya Pradesh Health and Family Welfare minister and government spokesperson Narottam Mishra said the allegations were “baseless and without any substance. This is an attempt to sully the image of the Chief minister.” “The allegations leveled by them are imaginary, baseless and without any substance. We have full faith in the SIT, STF, High Court and the Supreme Court. If necessary, we will probe these charges,” Mishra said.
Also reacting to the allegation by the Congress, BJP spokesperson GVl Narasimha Rao said that the grand old party had made similar accusations in past and all of them had proved to be utterly false. “I believe all the allegations made today will also be wrong, necessary details to emerge soon, Rao said, as per ANI.
Before the press conference, Singh went to the SIT office and in an affidavit alleged that he was in possession of the original excel sheet (he distributed this to media) and told the original sheet mentioned ‘CM’ at 48 times. In the excel sheet that the STF recovered with the help of Gujarat-based forensic laboratory, the word CM, has been replaced with M/s, Umabharti ji, Minister and Shailesh Yadav, son of Governor.
However, Singh declined to inform about source of the so called ‘original excel sheet’ and said he has submitted an affidavit, if found wrong, he could be prosecuted. They also alleged that Uma Bharati’s name was added in place of Shivraj Singh Chouhan. “It is not just the biggest scam of MP, but injustice has been done with youth of the state,” Kamal Nath said. Nath also demanded that Shivraj Singh Chouhan should resign so that an impartial probe can be carried out in the scam.
Digvijay Singh’s lawyer Tulsi said that the SIT had admitted that the hard disk recovered in connection with the MPPEB scam was cloned. The MPPEB scam was a admission and recruitment scam of 2013. However, the STF also investigated admissions and recruitments of previous years as well. The special task force of Madhya Pradesh police under the supervision of the high court is conducting the investigations.
Earlier, Singh and others have moved to High Court and Supreme Court seeking CBI probe in the case, but the courts expressed satisfaction over the investigation and constituted an SIT to probe all the aspects.