A day after Punjab Mining Minister Harjot Singh Bains directed the Vigilance Bureau (VB) to probe the alleged involvement of former Assembly Speaker and Congress leader Rana KP Singh in illegal mining, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday accused the Congress party of shielding its leaders involved in corruption.

Addressing a press conference here, AAP’s state senior spokesperson Malvinder Singh Kang asked Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring and Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa, as to why they are afraid of a VB investigation if their leaders are clean and have done nothing wrong.

This came after Rana KP Singh sought a probe by the CBI or the sitting High Court judge into the rampant illegal mining operations being carried out across Punjab, while addressing a press conference, accompanied by Warring and Bajwa.

Singh has alleged that it is a case of political vendetta as Bains has personal enmity with him. Both Bains and Singh contested the Assembly poll from Anandpur Sahib seat. AAP’s Bains defeated Congress’ Singh in Anandpur Sahib Assembly seat with a margin of 45780 votes.

Mining Minister Bains has claimed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had in July 2021 asked the Punjab Chief Secretary to probe the former Speaker’s role but the matter was suppressed as the Congress was in power.

Referring to the CBI letter dated July 9, 2021, Kang said that the matter was hushed up by the Congress government led by then Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh.

The CBI had forwarded a complaint along with original documents stating that Rana KP Singh was involved in illegal mining and he was receiving monthly payment of lakhs of rupees from crusher owners through his aides in Ropar and Anandpur Sahib as protection money. But the then government did not probe the matter, the AAP spokesperson said.

Terming the Congress as a party of ‘corrupt people,’ Kang said that there was large-scale corruption and scams reported during the previous governments. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann led government is working without any bias to nail all corrupt people after proper investigations.