Scam under your regime, apologise to nation: Rijiju to Congress

NEW DELHI: Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday took the offensive to the opposition camp and said the Congress should apologize to him and the nation if it claims that there was corruption in hydro project contracts in Arunachal Pradesh Turning the tables on the Congress, which has accused him of wrongdoings in the contracts, Rijiju said "If Congress is terming this as a scam, it has to apologise to the nation for the wrongdoings that happened during its regime."Earlier today, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala alleged that it was a Rs 450-crore scam in the form of false and inflated transportation bills in the contracts. Surjewala released an audio tape of a purported conversation of the minister's cousin, a contractor in the 600 MW power project, and Rijiju's letter recommending that held up payments be released."All the contract works were allotted during the Congress regime, all payments were made during their time. The Congress had government at the state and at the Centre during the period. They should explain if there was any corruption in the deals or if there were false or inflated bills," Rijiju said countering Congress allegations."I was not even an MP then, the Union minister said asking the Congress to say sorry to him for its baseless allegations."When I became MP in 2014 some villagers approached me requesting to get some pending payments cleared because they are small sub-contractors. I forwarded their letter to Piyush Goyal ," he said."It was small bills pending since 2012, 2013, 2014 before we came to power, the contracts were awarded when we were not in the government, the payments were made when we were not in the government. I was only told that some 20-30 per cent of payments were remaining which NEEPCO is not releasing. So I wrote a letter to the Power Minister to just look into the matter, that's it," the minister said.Rijiju, who is the Minister of State for Home, said he had written the letter to Goyal as it was his duty as an MP to take action on representations given by his constituents.Rijiju also strongly denied the charge that the person in question was his cousin."In our villages, we all are like brothers to each other. We do not marry in the village. The person is not related to me. In fact, he is not even a contractor," Rijiju said.The BJP strongly backed Rijiju and said the Congress was trying to blame the Union minister for its "sins" as it was in power at the Centre as well as in Arunachal Pradesh when the project under question was sanctioned.