The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday alleged that while the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was after every possible Minister of the Delhi government they are showing a “lenient attitude” towards the BJP at the Centre.
AIIMS scam
The party alleged that the BJP had successfully hidden a corruption scandal worth ₹7,000 crore in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Senior leader Ashutosh said that Vineet Chaudhury — a 1982 batch IAS officer from the Himachal Pradesh cadre, who was later Deputy Director (Administration) AIIMS, and is now Additional Chief Secretary, Himachal Pradesh — was fished out of corruption charges by the BJP.
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The CBI’s excuse for giving Mr. Chaudhury a clean chit, Mr. Ashutosh said, was that the Health Department did not provide them with the documents required for the probe. They also alleged that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was also involved in giving Mr. Chaudhury a clean chit.
Sanjeev Chaturvedi
“It is interesting how the CBI goes all guns blazing after the AAP ministers and is going easy on the BJP. Not only did the CBI let off Mr. Chaudhury, who was associated with the Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda, but they also removed former AIIMS CVO Sanjeev Chaturvedi from his position,” said Mr. Ashutosh.
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The party said that Mr. Chaudhury has worked with Mr. Nadda when he was the Health Minister of Himachal Pradesh between 1998 and 2003. “There is proof that Mr. Nadda wrote letters to the then Congress government to remove Mr. Chaturvedi from the position and after the BJP came to power several other letters were written to remove him. This was mainly done because Mr. Chaturvedi had called out their corruption,” Ashutosh said.
The AAP leader questioned that if there was no BJP involvement in this case then why was the then Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan removed and Mr. Nadda made the minister instead.
AIIMS, however, has refused to comment on the issue saying that the case is under investigation.