Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday said the law was taking its course following alleged political vendetta by the Congress following the arrest of party leader and former minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu in the alleged food grain transport tender scam. Mann said that his government takes action only when there is evidence of any wrongdoing.
Ashu was arrested by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau from Ludhiana on Monday. Punjab Congress leaders protested outside the Vigilance Bureau office in Mohali on Monday, accusing the Aam Aadmi Party government of indulging in “vengeance and witch-hunt in Punjab” to divert the party’s attention from the investigating agencies in Delhi. .
Mann said that before the assembly elections, AAP had promised the people of Punjab that every penny would be taken from those who looted the state treasury. The law is taking its course as to how this big scam happened and which officials and political people were involved, he told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.
We are not pursuing any political vendetta. The Chief Minister said that if we had done this, we would have lodged an FIR against someone by now. Mann insisted that we did not initiate action until we got evidence that yes this (former) minister had ordered it and his involvement was there.
Pointing to Congress’ protest on Monday, Mann said, “Earlier they were saying that they should be arrested, and when the arrest happened they said why did they do it,” he said. Ashu, who is the working president of the state unit of Congress, was arrested by the State Vigilance Bureau officials in Ludhiana in a scam related to allotment of transport tenders on fake registration numbers of vehicles during the previous Congress regime.
Ashu is the second minister of the previous government to be arrested by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau. Former minister and Congress leader Sadhu Singh Dharamsot was arrested in June on corruption charges. Ashu’s arrest came after he, along with other senior Punjab Congress leaders, “presented” himself at the Vigilance Bureau office in Mohali on Monday, saying it could detain any of them as they were being held against them by the AAP government. Tired of being accused of corruption.
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