Vyapam scam: Shivraj Chouhan reminds Shanta Kumar of 'values', breaks the same in process

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan seems to be using the same tactics to hoodwink his party seniors as he has used to deal with the opposition all along. He chose to chastise veteran leader from Himachal Pradesh, Shanta Kumar who had earlier written to BJP president Amit Shah saying, “Reports of Vyapam scam have made all of us bow our heads in shame. Any Indian will be disappointed and distressed over the kind of stories being reported by the media.”[caption id=“attachment_2331032” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. AFP[/caption] The party ignored Shanta Kumar’s observations like it has done with other veterans like LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and Govindacharya. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, however, could not hold his anger. “If he is so pained why did he not raise the corruption charges against Virbhadra Singh (Congress chief minister from Himachal)?” Prasad screamed. The whole effort is confined to emotive bashing rather than out-reasoning the questioners. “I feel sad to say that by writing this letter and making it public you have ignored those same values of the disciplined party that you have written about. “…. It is expected that before you form an opinion and arrive at any conclusion, you should have found out about the events and incidents that took place. Instead, you have suggested a Lokpal be set up within the party, while ignoring the party discipline. This is an extremely painful anomaly,” said Chouhan in his letter to Kumar. How did Chouhan’s letter find its way into the media if he was preaching discipline to a senior leader? Chouhan goes on to claim, “All necessary steps have been taken to provide justice to victims of Vyapam case. I am fully committed to a fair probe in this case. Vyapam is nothing but the conspiracy by opposition parties.” A conspiracy by the Opposition, Mr Chouhan? Was it the Opposition that was hiding Chouhan’s confidant and clansman Gulab Singh Kirar, who has been absconding for a year? Kirar, whom Special Task Force (STF) could not locate even while he shared the dais with Chouhan, enjoyed the status of a minister of state as member of the state Backward Classes and Minorities Commission. He continued to hold the post even as an absconder, till last week before the party suspended him and the government sacked him. Among the first FIRs CBI registered related to rigging of Vyapam examinations, the two persons named were Kirar and his son Shakti Pratap Singh. Kirar senior has been charged with getting his son admitted to post-graduation course in medicine by paying Rs 30 lakh while Kirar junior allegedly used fraudulent means to get admitted in the PG course. “I handed it (Vyapam probe) over to Special Task Force so that the entire issue can be investigated in an impartial and efficient manner. The Supreme Court has also praised the STF investigation and found it impartial and heading in right direction,” Chouhan wrote in his letter. Why did the Supreme Court agree to hand the probe to the CBI if the STF was doing such a fine job? In just about a week of its probe the CBI sniffed murder in some cases which were dismissed as suicides or accidents. Chouhan’s point-by-point rebuttal on Shanta Kumar’s observations doesn’t hold enough water. He says Congress was playing politics over scam-related deaths. Chouhan said there had been 31 Vyapam-related deaths between 2007 and 2015, and that all of them were accused in Vyapam-related cases and no one stood to benefit from their deaths. He said 15 of these deaths took place even before a first information report or FIR in the scam was registered on 7 July 2013 and remaining 16 occurred on account of either disease, accident or suicide. By connecting the deaths of five others - Dr DK Sakale, Arun Sharma, Ramakant Sharma, Akshay Singh, Anamika Khushwah, who are not related to Vyapam, an atmosphere of suspicion is being created,” said Chouhan. He seems to have already reached a conclusion before CBI has completed its inquiry into Akshay Singh’s death. Chouhan would want Shanta Kumar to believe that even the CBI probe was ordered at his initiative. Till a day before his government succumbed to circumstances created by “death-a-day sequence of four days” Chouhan was hiding behind lame technicalities like the matter being in the judicial domain. Chouhan had claimed once the high court began monitoring the probe conducted by the STF his government had nothing to with the probe. After the Supreme Court ordered a CBI probe into the Vyapam scam after hearing the Congress petition, there was very little for Chouhan left to do anyway.