More articles by

Soni Mishra
Soni Mishra

CHHATTISGARH

Ajit Jogi launches attack on Modi over 'selective corruption'

ajit-jogi-arvind-jain Ajit Jogi appears set to use the issue of corruption with which to launch his campaign for the assembly elections to be held in 2018 | Arvind Jain

Ex-Congress leader Ajit Jogi, who had vowed to commit himself to the politics of Chhattisgarh, attempted to grab national focus today as he launched a strident attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “selective action” against corruption. He claimed that the Modi dispensation was not taking firm action in scams that allegedly involved his former colleague P. Chidambaram and his family, BJD MP Baijayant Panda, Chhattisgarh Chief Miniser Raman Singh and his son Abhishek Singh.

Jogi claimed that the CBI raids on the premises of Chidambaram's son Karti had thrown up a plethora of information, but the probe was limited to just the FIPB approval given to the media company INX during Chidambaram's tenure as finance minister.

For one, he claimed, documents found in the raid revealed that Chidambaram's wife Nalini was a director in a company owned by Baijayant Panda and that the former finance minister did not mention this in his election affidavits.

The former chief minister of Chhattisgarh, who quit Congress last year as he felt sidelined and launched his own party Janata Congress Chhattisgarh, went on to claim that there was a deep collusion between the Chidambarams and Panda saying the senior Congress leader had appeared in his capacity as a lawyer for a company owned by the BJD leader in a plea seeking loan waiver from IDBI Bank. He also alleged irregularities in the FIPB approvals given to Panda's companies by the finance ministry under Chidambaram.

Jogi, who was the first chief minister of Chhattisgarh when it was carved out of Madhya Pradesh, then turned to the Panama papers to launch an attack on the present Chief Minister Raman Singh and his son Abhishek, pointing out that the CM's son was one of the 424 people named in the papers.

He accused the CM and his son of siphoning off money from a deal with Agusta Westland to buy a chopper. He claimed that the Raman Singh government had hired a commission agent for the deal in violation of rules and that the agent was, in fact, a shell company that shut down as soon as it received the payment.

Jogi, who said his allegations were based on the research he and his team have carried out, alleged that the CM and his son had hired the services of the same finance company as Vijay Mallya to park money in Swiss banks.

The former Chhattisgarh CM appears set to use corruption as an issue with which to launch his campaign for the assembly elections to be held in the state in 2018.

Jogi demanded that the Modi government initiate action in these specific allegations by October 2, failing which his newbie party will launch a dharna at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, and also hold protests in the state.

This browser settings will not support to add bookmarks programmatically. Please press Ctrl+D or change settings to bookmark this page.

Related Reading