Digvijay Singh grilled for 5 hours in MP Assembly Secretariat recruitment scam

Bhopal, Oct 16: Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh was on Thursday, Oct 15, grilled for five hours at a stretch in connection with an alleged recruitment scam at Madhya Pradesh Assembly Secretariat here between 1993 and 2003 during his tenure as Chief Minister.

Some 250-odd questions were posed to the senior leader by the Jahangirabad City Superintendent of Police (CSP) Saleem Khan with regard to the recruitment scam during the 10-year Congress rule when he was in power, before he was let off, a top police official said.

Singh reportedly told investigators that all the recruitments in the Assembly Secretariat during his tenure were done with the approval of the Madhya Pradesh Cabinet as per the book and nothing should be read into it, police sources said.

Sources close to investigators said that after going threadbare through the answers of Singh (which were audo- visually recorded) they will proceed accordingly. The ex-CM appeared before police after he was summoned for recording his statement in connection with the ongoing probe in the recruitment scam.

The Congress leader looked composed when he emerged out of the police control room campus (around 4.05 PM) where Jahangirabad CSP's office is housed.

He, however, did not speak to the mediapersons outside. His supporters in large numbers created a ruckus and blocked the road outside the control room.

Police had to use mild lathi charge and made way for Singh's SUV to leave the venue. Earlier, Singh clad in off-white kurta, pajama and a cream-colour Nehru jacket with his MLA son Jaivardhan in an SUV reached the police control room around 11 AM.

More than six MLAs, including Govind Singh, accompanied him. A large number of his supporters, including some women, drawn from different parts of the state flocked outside the control room and cheered their leaders with slogans like 'Diggy Raja Jindabad'.

Outside the police control room, they also burnt the effigy of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan chanting slogans against him to vent ire against registration of FIR against the Congress leader in the recruitment scam.

"Our leader has been falsely implicated and in protest we torched the effigy of Chouhan," Corporator Guddu Chauhan told PTI.

In February this year, Jahangirabad police had registered a case against Singh, former Speaker Sriniwas Tiwari and others for alleged forgery, conspiracy, cheating, and misuse of office as well as offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act following a complaint filed by the Assembly Secretariat about irregularities in recruitment between 1993 and 2003.

PTI