In a damage control exercise after the Congress accused the Chhattisgarh Government for masterminding Rs36,000-crore scam in supplying rice to the poor through PDS, a senior Minister in Government on Saturday refuted all allegations and claimed ‘Congress is staging a political stunt’ over the issue.“The entire turnover of Chhattisgarh Civil Supplies department starting from year 2004-05 till year 2014-15 was Rs26,841 crore,’’ claimed State Higher Education Minister Prem Prakash Pandey in a hurriedly convened Press conference and rejected Congress’ claim that corruption of Rs36,000 crore had happened in the department.
The Minister put a strong defence to serious allegations levelled by Congress leader Ajay Maken at a Press conference in New Delhi on Saturday claiming corruption to the tune of Rs36,000 crore in Chhattisgarh Civil Supplies department.Maken along with Bhupesh Baghel, President, Chhattisgarh PCC and TS Singh Deo, leader of Opposition, Chhattisgarh legislative Assembly, explained to the media about the so-called ‘Mother of all Scams’ which has been unearthed in Chhattisgarh. Congress demanded that the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh should immediately resign and a SIT under the monitoring of the Supreme Court should be formed to unearth the truth because it contains the name of the CM, his wife, sister-in-law of the Chief Minister and other Ministers. Pandey rejected all charges of the Congress and claimed that it was trying to Rsmislead people for political gains’.
“The turnover of State Civil Supplies department starting from year 2004-05 till year 2014-15 was Rs26,841 crore then how could corruption of Rs36,000 crore happened,” the minister told media persons.According to the Minister the raids were conducted by Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) as per the zero tolerance policy on corruption adopted by Chief Minister Raman Singh. “The entire last session of State legislative assembly was wasted over some false dairy pages presented by Congress party. The main accused in the case, Shivshankar Bhatt had also stated in court that the dairypages were false,” he said, adding that Congress is trying to stage apolitical stunt over the issue.To a question that whether any corruption had happened the Civil Supplies department or not, the minister said “ACB is an institution which works for dealing with corruption charges, it has conducted raids and found some irregularities. Any corruption has happened or not will be decided by the court.”