Chandigarh, May 24 (PTI) The Punjab opposition parties on Tuesday attacked the AAP government here terming the sacking and subsequent arrest of its Health Minister Vijay Singla as a face-saving step of the ruling party, taken under the fears of “public backlash over rampant corruption.” Demanding an independent probe into the matter, the opposition parties said it is for the first time that a Cabinet minister has been arrested on corruption charges within a month of the formation of the government.
Punjab Health Minister Vijay Singla was sacked from the state Cabinet Tuesday over graft charges and was arrested soon after.
Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said Singla’s arrest after his instant sacking was just a “face-saver” for the Aam Aadmi Party as it “feared public and media backlash over rampant corruption” surfacing “in the corridors of power within two months of being in the office”.
Asserting that the Congress party’s charge about “massive corruption” prevailing in the government has been proved true, Warring said, “We stand vindicated by no less a person than Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann who himself revealed corruption by one of his ministers”.
He maintained that this was just the beginning and there are many more in the queue and hoped the chief minister does not stop at Singla but take action against everyone.
“Your real test starts now,” Warring told the CM and added, “You can’t get away by just making a symbolic case while letting others go scot-free as Singla was not the only suspect in the pack, there are others as well.” Warring also took a dig at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over his claim a month ago that Bhagwant Mann had finished corruption in ten days, saying by their own admission now, one of their ministers has been indulging in corruption, he said.
“The way the chief minister announced the sacking of the minister on the charge of demanding bribe indicated that he wanted to save his own skin,” Warring said.
The Shiromani Akali Dal too questioned Kejriwal’s claim that Mann had ended corruption in the state within ten days.
Recalling Kejriwal’s claim within ten days of the formation of the AAP government in Punjab that the chief minister has put an end to corruption, SAD leader Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal asked, “If this was so, how did this incident concerning the minister happen?” “There is more than what meets the eye. Corruption is rampant and there are also allegations of large scale bribes being taken for postings and transfers which are done directly from Delhi,” he alleged.
The AAP government needs to come clean on this by ordering an independent inquiry into the entire episode by a central agency or a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, he said.
BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh termed Singla’s arrest in the corruption case “the tip of an iceberg”.
He said the AAP government led by Mann as chief minister and Kejriwal as its “patron” stood exposed completely within two months of coming to power.
“It indicates that the entire government is indulging in corruption and Singla has just been made a scapegoat,” he alleged.
Chugh said the entire incident was meant to “fool” the people of the state where the AAP government has completely “failed to deliver”. PTI CHS VSD RAX RAX
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Source: The Print
