Bhopal: CBI charge-sheet reignites Vyapam slugfest

Bhopal: With the CBI filing a charge-sheet, the Vyapam mega scam, which was dumped in the cold storage for the past many months, is back on the political centre stage. The Congress is crying foul over the premier investigative agency giving a clean-chit to the chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

“I was clean that is was why I got a clean-chit,” Chouhan told reporters on Wednesday. He said that he was unnecessarily dragged into the controversy. “One gets used to facing allegations in politics. But I was put in the dock without any rhyme or reason and that gave me immense mental pain,” he said. Chouhan said that as the Congress has failed to make any headway in the state, it was resorting to the cheap tactic of hurling unsubstantiated charges at him and others.

Former chief minister Digvijay Singh, who had alleged Chouhan’s involvement in the scam declined to comment. He said that he would say anything on the issue only after completing his Narmada Parikrama.

Leader of opposition in the Vidhan Sabha Ajay Singh has put a question mark on the entire probe. “Someday, the CBI may put up a report in a court saying that Vyapam scam never took place,” he quipped. He said that the very fact that the names of the key accused do not figure in the charge-sheet indicates that the probe was a sham.

He said that one of the accused Mohit Choudhary had taken names of K Sudarshan and Suresh Soni of the RSS. The name of Uma Bharati had also figured in the probe by STF. However, the CBI did not even deem it fit to question the three. He said that the chief minister had admitted in the Vidhan Sabha that 1,000 people had been wrongly recruited through Vyapam. But the CBI did not care to look into the issue. Congress party chief spokesperson K K Mishra said that this was not the first time that it was being claimed that Chouhan has got a clean-chit in the Vyapam case. Similar claims were made on three occasions earlier.

CBI probe comes under a cloud

The CBI, which is probing the Vyapam scam for almost two years now, has come under a cloud after filing of the charge-sheet in the case. The name of Pankaj Trivedi, former director and controller of the Vyapam, was mentioned prominently in connection with the scam. The STF, in its probe, had concluded that along with Trivedi, Vyapam chief system analyst Nitin Mahindra had scripted the scam. However, their names are missing from the charge-sheet. In contrast, the STF had made Trivedi an accused in all cases. Trivedi, in a statement to the STF, had admitted that candidates were declared successful in recruitment and admission tests conducted by Vyapam in return for money or on recommendation of influential people.