Headlines
Candidates accused in Vyapam must be made approvers: Digvijaya (Interview)
By
Anuradha MukherjeeNew Delhi, July 14
Candidates and their parents
named as accused in the Vyapam recruitment scam should be made
approvers in the case, Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief
minister Digvijaya Singh said on Tuesday.
"Police officials and
others who have made money from these candidates should be the accused.
They should be behind bars," Digvijaya Singh told IANS in an exclusive
interview here.
Asked about the string of some 45 deaths linked
to the scandal, many in mysterious circumstances, Digvijaya Singh said
while he could not claim that these were linked to the scam, matters did
appear to be suspicious.
"It is suspicious how so many young people have died due to seemingly innocuous reasons."
Reacting
to Home Minister Rajnath Singh's clean chit to Chief Minister Shivraj
Singh Chouhan in the Vyapam scam, Digvijaya Singh said the comment was
"unbecoming" of the union minister.
"Statements of this kind will
effectively prejudice the IPS (Indian Police Service) officers
investigating this case. It is most unbecoming of the home minister to
give this kind of statement."
The Madhya Pradesh Professional
Examination Board, better known as Vyapam, short for Vyavsayik Pariksha
Mandal, has been mired in controversies for years.
The scam came
to light when 20 people were arrested in 2013 for impersonating
candidates meant to appear in the 2009 medical entrance examination.
Vyapam
conducts examinations to recruit Class III and IV employees in the
state as well as admission tests for medical courses. More than 2,000
people have been arrested so far in connection with the scandal.
Digvijaya Singh welcomed the CBI takeover of the investigation but insisted that the Supreme Court must monitor the probe.
"We
had asked the Madhya Pradesh CM to order a CBI probe first and we
objected to the Special Task Force (STF) comprising only Madhya Pradesh
Police officers investigating the scam."
According to him, Madhya Pradesh Police personnel would find it difficult to investigate their own chief minister.
The
STF was due to submit its report on the Vyapam scam when the CBI probe
was ordered. This effectively means that the STF report will not be
released now.
Asked if he believed Chouhan would step down,
Digvijaya Singh replied in the negative, saying such a development would
trigger a chain reaction.
"The MP CM knew about the whole
thing. He was the person who put everybody involved in the scam in
place. How can he not be aware of a scam of this size happening right
under his nose?"
"But I don't expect him to resign. Too many top
leaders of the BJP and RSS are involved. (His resignation) will lead to
a chain reaction."
Digvijaya Singh said the first information report names prominent RSS leaders like Suresh Soni and the late Sudarshan.
Mihir
Kumar, a supposed beneficiary of the scam, reportedly told the STF that
Sudarshan and Soni's recommendations got him a job as a food inspector
through the MP Professional Examination Board. Soni has denied the
allegation. Kumar is currently on bail.
According to the senior
Congress leader, the BJP government was not serious about getting to the
bottom of this case and the CBI probe was announced only to pre-empt a
Supreme Court order.