Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself cleared the candidature of tainted North Goa Congress lok Sabha candidate Ravi Naik, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president John Fernandes said.
Naik, who is facing charges of being linked to drug dealers as well as shielding them during his tenure as Home Minister under the Congress regime in the State as well as with illegal recruitment in the Animal Husbandry department that he headed, has been given a ticket for the North Goa seat.
“These issues about drug links and all came before our central committee while deciding about tickets. The Prime Minister was there. He himself cleared it. The intelligence report also said that there was nothing against him (Naik),” Fernandes told the reporters suggesting the “What the Prime Minister has cleared could not be questioned from anyone else” adage.
Fernandes was questioned by reporters, about granting the lS ticket to Naik who had lost the election two years back.
Ravi Naik, who has also been linked to drug mafias in a legislative committee report.Singh and the Prime Minister’s Office has been linked to several scams in the past, including the mammoth 2G telecom scam, as well as the coal block allocation scam.
Naik blamed the issue of his linkages to drug mafia as a product of “fabrication by the media”.“The media created all this. I have no charge against me,” the former Home Minister said.
Asked to respond to the findings of a legislative committee in which he, as well as his son Roy have been accused of having links to the drug mafia, including one operated by Israeli drug dealers, Naik said: “People who have been hurt by me have done this”.