Facing the heat of the mining scam and following a CBI raid on senior bureaucrats in Uttar Pradesh, former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has launched a scathing attack on the BJP government. He alleged that now the BJP was showing its true colours and using money power and the CBI against him.
“If the CBI questions me, I will answer all their questions, but the janata (people of the state) will answer the BJP,” the Samajwadi Party leader declared on Sunday.
Yadav was apprehensive that the BJP would use the CBI against him in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.
The CBI had raided the Lucknow house of an IAS officer, B.Chandra Kala and other officials on Saturday to probe the mining scam that took place during Yadav’s regime.
During the time of the scam, the state mining department functioned under Yadav. After 2011, all mining ministers in Uttar Pradesh have been on the radar of the CBI. In such a situation, chances are high that the CBI may question Yadav, mining minister Gayatri Prajapati and SP MLC Ramesh Mishra. It was alleged that Mishra played an important role in executing the scam.
It was in the backdrop of these allegations that Yadav slammed the BJP.
Yadav said in the previous polls, the BJP had spent Rs 5,000 crore to come to power. “Now, they will use the CBI, but they should understand it well that in the polls it is the people who vote, not the CBI,” Yadav argued.
On the other hand, the BJP accused Yadav of being involved in the mining scam and demanded a probe against him. A senior cabinet minister of the Uttar Pradesh government, Siddharth Nath Singh, alleged Akhilesh Yadav had relations with the mining mafia and he himself was the minister of the state mining department.
In addition to Yadav, some more IAS officers are on the radar of the CBI in connection with the mining scam.
