Senior Bihar BJP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Tuesday demanded CBI probe into the alleged multi-crore drug scam. Modi, earlier, had indulged into “letter war” with former Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on the issue.
“Since the ongoing probe into the alleged multi-crore medicine purchase scam is going nowhere as the State Government has not fixed terms of reference and time frame to those officials probing the matter I demand for a CBI inquiry into it”, Modi demanded while talking to mediapersons on the sideline of his weekly janta durbar. He also wondered that ever since the drug scam has come to light no official has either been suspended or action taken against any.
“At a time when the State Government should have shown courage and commitment to get to the bottom of the facts and brought culprits to book, the ongoing parallel probe appears to be heading nowhere”, he charged.The alleged drug scam is being probed by the Principal health secretary Deepak Kumar Singh and the health Secretary Anand Kishore. Ordering the probe the State Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi had earlier said that no guilty person would be spared.
Modi, however, said that since drug scam happened when the then Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was holding the State Health Department, no Government official would muster courage to prove involvement of his own boss.
The BJP leader also questioned the Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s statement that the State agency was competent to probe the scam.
Manjhi on Tuesday ruled out Modi’s demand for a CBI probe into the alleged drug scam saying “there was no need of any CBI inquiry into it when the State agencies are probing the charge”.
Earlier, the State health minister Ramdhani Singh had embarrassed the Government over drug scam, saying that Rs2 crore bungling in the drug purchase scam could not be a scam. However, the Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi contradicted his Health Minister the very next day saying that a scam was a scam whatever the amount be.