Chandigarh: Senior congress leader & Punjab’s leader of the opposition (LoP), Partap Singh Bajwa on Monday has asked the Bhagwant Mann government to shed hypocrisy on corruption and sack his cabinet minister Fauja Singh Sarari from the council of ministers without further delay.
“ You can not have two different yardsticks to fight corruption, the biggest poll plank on which your party rose to power. The home affairs and justice department which comes directly under your control has asked Punjab’s DGP Gaurav Yadav to initiate a probe against the former DGP Sidharath Chattopadhya on the basis of an audio clip that came under the public glare in the month of January”, said Bajwa.
In the alleged audio clip the home department claimed that DGP Chattopadhya was in conversation with a proclaimed offender (PO) involved with drug mafia and wanted in drug cases. The home department also referred to the various reports published in the newspapers pertaining to the audio clip.
Bajwa said in the same way in the month of September an audio clip of Cabinet Minister Fauja Singh Sarari had surfaced in which he was heard talking with his PA Tarsem Lal Kapoor making plans to extract money from food grain contractors. The media had also widely reported the case.
Kapoor in fact in his interviews to the cross section of the media had already admitted that the voice actually belonged to him. Sarari too admitted it was his voice but lied through his teeth that the clip was tempered. The Bhagwant Mann government did not even bother to get the audio clip forensically examined to establish its authenticity.
Bajwa asked why Bhagwant Mann was dragging feet to order a similar probe against Sarari which he had initiated against the former DGP. “ Bhagwant Mann should also not forget that Dr. Vijay Singla was dropped from the cabinet in the month of May merely on the basis of an audio clip which has never seen the light of the day till date.