LUCKNOW: BSP chief Mayawati may be in trouble ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as the Allahabad High Court on Thursday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to furnish the status report on the vigilance department's probe in connection with the alleged Rs 1,410-crore memorial scam during the BSP regime.
A division Bench, comprising Chief Justice DB Bhosale and Justice Yashwant Varma, while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Shashikant alias Bhavesh Pandey of Mirzapur to seek a CBI probe into the scam related to the construction of memorials during Mayawati's 2007 and 2012 regime, posted the matter for hearing on September 27.
The court asked the government agencies to produce the details of the FIR filed in the case within a week.
Through the PIL, the litigant has alleged that there has been a scam of Rs 1,410 crore in the construction of a number of memorials including Ambedkar Parivartan Sthal, Eco Park, Kanshi Ram Memorial, Ramabai Memorial ground, Gautam Buddh Garden-all in Lucknow and Ambedkar park in Noida.
Notably, the then UP Lokayukta NK Mehrotra had also indicted former ministers Naseemuddin Siddiqui and Babu Singh Kushwaha along with 197 others for 'wrong-doings' in the purchase of sandstone for the Dalit memorials in Lucknow and Noida during Mayawati's regime from 2007 to 2012.
The Lokayukta, had exonerated Mayawati for lack of evidence in his 88-page report which he had handed over to the former CM Akhilesh Yadav.
However, Siddiqui, once a close confidant of Mayawati, is facing several cases of disproportionate assets. He had recently joined Congress party after parting ways from the BSP. Babu Singh Kushwaha, the then health minister in Mayawati Cabinet was expelled from the BSP for his role in the infamous National Rural Health Mission scam in 2007-2012. Singh is currently serving jail term in connection with the case.