Allegation baseless, says Madhya Pradesh government

The ‘vyapam’ recruitment scam relating to the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board took a dramatic turn on Monday with senior Congress leader, Digvijaya Singh, filing an “explosive” affidavit before the Special Investigation Team probing the case.

The 15-page affidavit charged that the Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, was involved in the scam along with his family members and alleged that crucial pieces of evidence had deliberately been tampered with to protect them.

“The STF is playing into the hands of vested interests to shield and give a clean chit to the Chief Minister, sitting Union Minister [Uma Bharati] and RSS functionaries. In particular, the affidavit alleged that the investigating agencies had manipulated the retrieved excel sheets and deleted data of the computer hard disk, which formed the basis for the entire investigation.

Mr. Singh submitted to SIT a copy of retrieved excel sheets, which he claimed were original and whose details varied widely with those submitted in the charge sheet filed earlier by the STF.

As per the sheets submitted by Mr. Singh, the word “CM” appeared in 48 places whereas the sheets submitted by the STF had no such word. Instead, at 21 of these places, the word “Minister” was found, at 7 places “Uma Bharati” was mentioned, and the words “Raj Bhavan” and “M/s” were found in one place each. In 18 other instances, the box was blank.

Claiming that this was meant to ensure that the Chief Minister did not figure anywhere in the case, Mr. Singh also noted that in contrast to rules, only the hard disk of the computer was seized and not the entire computer system, and that the ‘Hash Value,’ which is the sum total of data — actual and deleted — was not taken at the time of the seizure with the hard disk connected to the computer. High drama ensued after Mr. Singh, with a galaxy of senior Congress leaders, addressed a press conference and demanded that the Chief Minister resign immediately to ensure that there was an impartial probe into the scam. The leaders included former Union Ministers, Kamal Nath, Suresh Pachauri and Jyotirdoy Scindia, Madhya Pradesh unit president, Arun Yadav, and the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, Satyadev Katare.

Reacting post haste, the State government denied the allegation, saying it was “totally false and without any basis.” State Health Minister and government spokesperson Narottam Mishra said that allegation was part of a routine exercise of the Congress to tarnish the image of the government and the Chief Minister.