File photo of MAdhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivram Singh Chouhan. (Press Trust of India)
The Congress, which has been the main Opposition party in Madhya Pradesh for nearly 12 years, has again demanded that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan should be investigated by the CBI for allegedly running a large scam in how exams are conducted to recruit for important government departments.
The Congress alleges that the Chief Minister - who is serving a third consecutive term - is part of a conspiracy embedded in the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board, which holds exams for positions like medical officers, engineers and auditors for the government. Candidates allegedly paid bribes to government officials in exchange for not taking the exam, but being listed among those who had cleared the test.
Digvijaya Singh of the Congress, who has in the past been Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, says that Mr Chouhan and his administration are guilty of tampering with evidence that's being collected by investigators. He says that as part of the cover-up, a hard drive seized by investigators was replaced, and that the Chief Minister was mentioned 48 times in records that listed politicians who instructed candidates of their choice to be shown as having qualified for the position. Top Congress leaders say that to protect Mr Chouhan, his name was replaced with that of BJP leader Uma Bharti.
Mr Chouhan has termed the allegations as baseless. "We have been winning people's confidence for so many years. The elite are not able to digest the fact that a common man has been the chief minister for so long. So, they are trying to create misunderstanding. All these are baseless allegations."
BJP's GVL Narasimha Rao said that after receiving an anonymous complaint, it was Chief Minister Chouhan who asked for a special team to handle the inquiry in 2013; the probe is being supervised by the Jabalpur High Court, so the Congress incorrectly claims the government is running the investigation, Mr Rao said.