Simmering discontent against chief minister Raman Singh on Wednesday surfaced in the ruling BJP in Chhattisgarh with two senior party leaders virtually pointing a finger at him for the irregularities in allotment of contract for mining of a coal block that cost the state exchequer over `1,000 crores, as exposed by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its latest report.
Party’s chief whip in Lok Sabha Ramesh Bais, considered Dr Singh’s bête noire, termed as “illegal” the award of tender for mining of a coal block to the Sancheti Group, allegedly close to BJP president Nitin Gadkari, by state government-owned Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation (CMDC), causing acute embarrassment to the Raman Singh regime.
Another senior party leader and BJP national vice-president Karuna Shukla, niece of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, has taken a dig at the state BJP government on the CAG’s indictment. She also alleged that a few people in the government have hijacked the state party, gagging dissenting voices against them, apparently referring to the chief minister and his close followers in his ministry.
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Cong: Clean chit to Modi not a court order
Age Correspondent
New Delhi, April 11
The BJP may project it as a “big relief” to Gujarat chief minister, but the Congress on Wednesday took a dim view of the Supreme Court-appointed SIT giving Narendra Modi a clean chit in the post-Godhra Gulberg massacre case saying it was not a court order.
“It is not an order of the court. Many a time, courts do not accept the report of the CBI,” party spokesman Rashid Alvi told reporters reacting to the relief granted to Mr Modi in the case.
Even the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had said that the post-Godhra violence was a “blot on the country”, he said.
He said that whatever has happened in 2002 (communal violence after the Godhra incident) showed that the Gujarat government and the CM had “failed to control the situation”.
Asked whether the Congress will make the 2002 riots an issue in the Assembly elections in the state, Mr Alvi said the violence has already been an issue as it was a “‘very shameful and very unfortunate” incident.