Alleging a scam of more than Rs 1000 crore in three tenders under the e-tendering system of the Madhya Pradesh government’s Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department and attempts by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to cover it up, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Ajay Singh has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to take cognizance of the matter and ensure it gets investigated honestly at a high level.
In his letter, Singh claimed on Friday that the alleged scam also involves tendering of two projects, which the PM is incidentally scheduled to inaugurate in the Rajgarh district of MP on 23 June.
PM Modi is arriving in MP on Saturday to inaugurate the Mohanpura irrigation project in Rajgarh district and some other projects, while he would also attend a function at Indore.
Ajay Singh has also charged that after the expose of this alleged scam, which was carried out by tampering in the e-tenders, all tenders since 2014 worth more than Rs three lakh crore have come under a cloud of suspicion.
The Congress leader has stated that the scam mainly involves five state government departments including Public Works Department (PWD), Women and Child Development Department, Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department, Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA) Department and the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) of the PWD.
Singh has alleged that the MP CM has handed the investigation of the matter to the State Economic Offences Wing (EOW), which does not have any cyber experts.
The Congress leader has further charged that at least three main investigating officers of the EOW including its SP are very close relatives of two ministers in MP and a BJP minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile, senior Congress MLAs Ramniwas Rawat and Dr Govind Singh submitted a notice in the MP Assembly Secretariat for an adjournment motion for discussion on the alleged e-tendering scam in the monsoon session of the state assembly between 25 and 29 June.
The Congress leaders have alleged that the state government is trying to cover up the scam and in that attempt it transferred the Principal Secretary level officer who had initially exposed the scam some days ago.
The Congress leaders have also charged that several high-profile people including ministers in the state government, BJP politicians, officers and their relatives are directly involved in the scam. The Congress has demanded a CBI inquiry into the scam.