Chief Minister N Biren Singh said his government has zero tolerance towards corruption.
The N Biren Singh government in Manipur has started to work on its key poll promise of probing corruption cases and alleged scams in the state.
Quick on the heels of four Congress legislators switching over to the party, the BJP-led coalition government decided to ask the CBI to probe the alleged irregularities in several projects under the Manipur Development Society (MDS), a government agency formed during the previous Congress regime.
"My government has zero tolerance towards corruption. We repeatedly tried to find out about where certain fund in certain accounts of this society has gone. We got some hints on misappropriation and we wanted that a central agency should probe it," Chief Minister N Biren Singh told NDTV.
Altogether six Congress MLAs have switched over to the BJP - one of them a minister in the Biren Singh cabinet. The new Chief Minister says if the investigations impugn them, no leniency will be shown.
"Even if some people who have come from other parties to BJP are found guilty we will act on them. We are following the directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of fighting corruption in the hardest way," Mr Singh added.
The alleged irregularities in MDS had come to light last year when former Manipur Chief Minister RK Ranbir Singh's son, RK Premjit Singh, filed public interest litigations (PILs) against three separate units of the Okram Ibobi Singh government for alleged mismanagement of funds.
"While I welcome the decision of the state government to ask for a CBI in the MDS scam, I am sceptical if they would do the same for all the irregularities reported during the previous regime because there are many who were previously with the Congress," RK Premjit Singh told NDTV.