Delhi BJP president Vijender Gupta and former Delhi Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana on Saturday criticised the United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre for maintaining a studied silence on the issue of alleged rampant corruption in the preparations for the Commonwealth Games 2010.
Addressing a press conference at Delhi BJP headquarters, the two senior party leaders said the Central Vigilance Commission has in its enquiry of 15 projects connected with the Games pointed to cases of corruption. “The CVC has requested the Central Bureau of Investigation to file cases and take legal action against the guilty persons,’’ Mr. Gupta said.
However, they said only two days ago Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a clean chit to the organisers by stating that he was fully satisfied with the construction work and the activities of the Organizing Committee. This being the case, the BJP leaders questioned if the Prime Minister was “indirectly threatening the CVC and the CBI by giving clean chit to the organizers so that these investigation agencies may not take action against the guilty persons?’’
The Delhi BJP, they said, have planned a sit-in demonstration at Parliament Street on Monday to demand a high level enquiry into all the wrong-doings in the Commonwealth Games preparations.
Raising the issue of an English firm being allegedly paid Rs 2 crore and a further sum of 25,000 pounds per month in an allegedly unjustified deal, the two BJP leaders also demanded to know ``why the Government of India is mum on such an important issue?’’
“It may be mentioned that the Indian High Commission in United Kingdom has cautioned the Government of India that an English company has got Rs. 2 crore transferred in cash and the Organising Committee has committed financial irregularities in the matter,’’ Mr Gupta said, adding that the “Enforcement Directorate has started an enquiry into the episode after getting information from the British Government’’.
In view of such serious allegations, the Delhi BJP president has demanded that the Enforcement Directorate should be allowed to carry out thorough investigations into the matter so that the truth is revealed.
They said a proper investigation should also be conducted into the issued raised by the CVC on how in order to benefit favourite firms, works were awarded at high rates whereas these works could have been done by good firms at lower rates. Charging that the quality of the works was also found inferior by CVC, the BJP has stated that since civic agencies like NDMC, PWD, RITES, MCD and DDA were found to have allotted works in an arbitrary way, this issue should be investigated.
Simultaneously, they said the huge escalation in the cost of construction and renovation of various structures such as Yamuna Sports Complex, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Talkatora Stadium and Major Dhyan Chand Stadium also needed to be looked into.
