MPPEB scam: Chouhan rubbishes charges; to file defamation case

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Bhopal, Jun 23: Rubbishing allegations of wrongdoings in Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board scam, state Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday said he will soon file a defamation case on the issue.

However, he did not specify against whom he wished to do so. "We have verified all information about allegations and have made all preparations to file a defamation case and would give statement in the court," Chouhan told reporters at the party office here, without taking any name.

State Congress chief spokesman K K Mishra had last week demanded a CBI probe to unearth the "nexus among middlemen, politicians, bureaucrats and education mafia which is behind the scam."

He had alleged that Chief Minister's relatives played a dubious role in the scam. He claimed he was in possession of some SMSes which were purportedly sent by various people, including politicians and even some journalists among others, to the MPPEB exam controller Pankaj Trivedi and the system analyst Nitin Mahindra- both the main accused in the case- and mining baron Sudhir Sharma.

Hitting back at Congress, the Chief Minister clarified in a series of tweets that not even a single relative of his wife was selected as a constable in the Transport Department.

"Did thru (through) Vyapam (MPPEB) 17 relatives of my wife from Gondia get selected in parivahan aarakshak exam? Not even one. Nor from entire Maharashtra," Chouhan tweeted.

"The entire list of select parivahan aarakshak was available on the departmental website. They did not dare to even have a look at it," he said in another tweet.

Referring to the charge that 139 calls were made from the CM house as alleged by K K Mishra, Chouhan tweeted, "They say 139 phone calls from CM House and issue a Call Detail Report (CDR) where not even one call number is from CM house."

"Just as a lie has no legs to stand on, a CDR has no legs of its own. It requires substantiation. They do not even see the CDR," he said.

In another tweet, Chouhan also hit back at the media for not checking facts saying, "Do they not attempt any fact checking on their own before carrying out such ill-motivated baseless canards in media?"

PTI