Cong alleges CM Chouhan's name was removed from documents linked to Vyapam scam

The Congress on Monday made fresh allegations against the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh in connection with the 2013 Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) scam better known as the Vyapam scam, alleging that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s name was removed a document seized from accused Nitin Mahindra’s computer. [caption id=“attachment_2102019” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan. AFP[/caption] “On 18 July, 2013, a hard disk was seized from Nitin Mahindra’s computer. When police seized the hard disk, why wasn’t it sealed? It wasn’t sealed because it had explosive material which needed to be changed,” KTS Tulsi, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh’s lawyer, said . “The SIT itself has admitted that the original hard disk was cloned,” Tulsi said. He added that on the original hard disk, there was an Excel sheet with 131 names on it, which included the MP CM Chouhan’s name at various parts of the document. “That’s why the Excel sheet was changed. The Chief Minister’s name had to be removed…At various places in the Excel sheet, the words ‘Chief Minister’ were replaced with ‘Minister’. At one place, ‘Chief Minister’ had been replaced with ‘Mrs’. At one place, ‘Chief Minister’ had been deleted and ‘Raj Bhawan’ was written in its place,” said Tulsi. “At seven places, the Chief Minister’s name had been replaced with ‘Uma Bharti’,” Tulsi said. He also said that in the cloned hard disk, apart from these changes, ‘Minister 2’, ‘Minister 3’ and ‘Minister 4’ had been replaced with ‘Minister’. The Congress said that these allegations had been filed in an affidavit which would be presented to the SIT probing the scam. The party also demanded Chouhan’s immediate resignation as CM so that the investigation could continue without any bias. “This affidavit is a challenge to the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister: Either he should resign or prosecute me for giving false evidence if he thinks my allegations are wrong,” said Digvijaya Singh. “The Excel sheet from the hard disk seized from Nitin Mahindra’s computer is the evidence this case rests on,” said Singh. “The standard procedure for investigation in the Vyapam scam was not followed. The investigation has not told us so far whether the hard disk recovered was from Mahindra’s laptop or desktop.” Singh also explained that even though Laxmikant Sharma had gone to jail because of the Excel sheet, the most important person involved in this scam was the MP CM and his family. “To save himself, he (Chouhan) did not even spare Uma Bharti and the Governor. In this entire probe, to save one person, the entire investigation has been tampered with,” he said. “This is not just the biggest scam of Madhya Pradesh but also a crime against the families of the youth of the state,” said Congress leader Kamal Nath. “The Madhya Pradesh CM should resign,” he said, adding that ministers apart from the Chief Minister were involved in the scam. “There can be no bigger issue than this for Madhya Pradesh. This is connected with the future of the state,” said Jyotiraditya Scindia. BJP reacted to the allegations made by the Congress and said that all the charges were false and baseless. “Congress is wrong. Everyone in the country knows that the allegations are wrong because the investigation carried out by the MP government has been sincere and transparent,” MP BJP president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan told Times Now. “Congress is not getting its hands on anything, which is why it is making these baseless and false charges.”