Taking to X, Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary and in charge of communications, said: “The (Narendra) Modi government operates ‘mafia style’ under a cloak of silence and intimidation. If anyone exposes its modus operandi of corruption, they are threatened or removed. The latest victims are three officers of the CAG, who exposed massive scams in government schemes in a report tabled during the monsoon session of Parliament.”

Ramesh also shared a report from a news portal that claims that the CAG has transferred officers, including three who were coincidentally involved with and in charge of two of the 12 key audit reports that were presented in Parliament during the monsoon session.

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Taking a swipe at the Centre, the parliamentarian said the officers have been transferred to cover up the “blatant corruption” of the government. He also demanded that the transfer orders should be cancelled immediately.

Ramesh, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP, further posted: “Now, the three CAG officers in charge of reporting on the Ayushman Bharat and Dwarka Expressway scams have been transferred to hide the blatant corruption in the Modi government, even though the CAG is supposed to be an independent body. We demand that these transfer orders should be cancelled immediately, the officers return to the CAG and action must be taken on these megascams relating to Dwarka Expressway, Bharatmala and Ayushman Bharat.”

Referring to the CAG report, Ramesh said, “The CAG report showed scams across infrastructure and social schemes. It documented 1,400 per cent cost inflation and tendering irregularities in the Dwarka Expressway, in addition to a diversion of Rs 3,600 crore from highways projects, faulty bidding practices, and 60 per cent cost inflation of Bharatmala scheme.”

Not only that, an audit of the Ayushman Bharat scheme showed lakhs of claims made to dead patients and at least 7.5 lakh beneficiaries linked to a single mobile number, he added.

It may be mentioned that the CAG in its audit report on “Implementation of Phase-1 of the Bharatmala Pariyojana” presented in Parliament during the monsoon session flagged the “sky-high cost” of the Dwarka Expressway. The report revealed that the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) board approved the Dwarka Expressway with civil cost of Rs 7,287.29 crore with cost per kilometre of Rs 250.77 crore as against the civil cost of Rs 18.20 crore per kilometre as approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.

Besides that, the CAG in its performance audit report on the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), highlighted various irregularities in the implementation of the scheme.

The AB-PMJAY provides a health cover up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year. It provides cashless and paperless access to services for the beneficiaries at the point of service.