BSP chief Mayawati on Tuesday accused the Centre of misusing the CBI after the agency decided to question her in the multi-crore NRHM scam nearly four years after it surfaced and said the move reeked of “political vendetta”.
The Centre rejected Ms. Mayawati’s allegation, saying the CBI does its work on the basis of “proofs”.
“CBI does its work on the basis of proofs. There is no need to draw any other conclusion (from the agency’s actions),” Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters.
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Claiming that she had no connection with the scam, the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said the CBI was free to investigate her and that she would not be cowed down.
Questioning the timing of the CBI investigation against her, she said the move against her was an attempt to “demoralise” her party and divert attention from the “failure” of the government to fulfil its promises made to the people.
“I have no connection with the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam. BJP, which is trying to use CBI, should give up such tactics as such attempts have cost them dearly earlier,” she told reporters in New Delhi.
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CBI chief Anil Sinha said the agency will proceed as per requirement in the NRHM scam probe.
“The agency will proceed as per the demand of the investigation,” Mr. Sinha told the media but refused to give any details of what was the requirement of examining Ms. Mayawati after filing 48 charge sheets in the scam.
The CBI had called Ms. Mayawati on Monday for examination on two specific issues related to the NRHM scam — bifurcation of the Health and Family Welfare Department and appointment of District Project Officers considered key to the scam.
The move was an attempt to unravel larger conspiracy in the case, CBI sources claimed. A >number of mysterious deaths of government medical officers had also marked the scam.
The BSP chief claimed that the decision to question her four years after the scam came to light only reeks of political vendetta.
She said, before a CBI officer called her, the news that “I could be questioned in the NRHM scam was leaked to the media in a bid to demoralise me and my party workers ahead of Bihar Assembly elections”.
Ms. Mayawati said such tactics of misleading the people will not help the BJP in any way.
“I do not succumb to pressure, I do not bend,” she said.
But at the same time she said the decision of the agency could be the handiwork of some “casteist officers” who look down upon Dalits and backward classes.
“It is possible that the high command of the BJP is not aware of the move of these officers... it has to be probed,” she said.
Explaining her stand on the issue, Ms. Mayawati said the decision was taken by her Cabinet and subsequent decision on appointing two chief medical officers in every district was taken by the concerned >Minister Babulal Kushwaha . The scam took place during Ms. Mayawati’s regime between 2007 and 2012.
“I warn BJP to give up such deeds. Congress had also tried such tricks to divert attention from its failures of governance,” she added.