BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Health Minister Narottam Mishra on Sunday reacted strongly to the allegations by Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) that the family members of Chouhan were involved in the multi-crore Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) admission-recruitment scam.
The STF so far has arrested nearly 400 people from different parts of the state in connection with the scam including students and parents who allegedly paid bribes to secure seats in medical and dental colleges. The then Technical Education Minister Laxmikant Sharma and officials of the MPPEB have also been arrested and sent to jail.
Following accusations of the Congress that one of the CM’s office staff, Prem Prasad Singh was involved in the scam, Chouhan on Sunday removed him from his secretariat. Singh has been accused of using his position to push for the admission of his daughter in the state medical college.
Chouhan said that STF’s investigation was going in the right direction and the law was taking its own course.
Narottam Mishra, who is also the state government spokesperson, denied the Congress’s allegations against a member of the Chouhan family and threatened that defamation suit will be filed against the Congress leader who at a press conference alleged that the money paid for admission/recruitment had also reached the family members of Chouhan.
The Health Minister also said that the allegations levelled by Congress spokesperson K K Mishra were without facts. “The STF, constituted to investigate the scam, is doing its work and many senior officials and a leader who was with our party are being questioned so there is no question of the government trying to save anyone.
The Congress had alleged that numerous appointments of residents of Gondia (Maharashtra, which is the native place of Sadhna Singh, wife of Shivraj Singh Chouhan) were done in the Transport Department in 2013. But the truth is that not a single person from Gondia has been recruited in the department in 2013. If the Congress does not tender an unconditional apology, we are going to file a defamation case against them”, said Narrotam Mishra.
Earlier, Congress spokesperson had accused Union Minister Uma Bharti, RSS leader Suresh Soni, minister Kailash Vijayvargia and several bureaucrats of being involved in the scam and stated that the case should be handed over to the CBI for investigation.
Surprisingly, despite the allegations being made against the Chief Minister and some of the senior ministers of the state, none of the senior Congress leaders were present on the occasion apart from Mishra.