Paid bribe 5 years ago to get NOC, claims BJP MP; RMC’s fire dept under scanner

The BJP leader from Rajkot said he gave the bribe to deputy fire officer B J Theba nearly five years ago when he was just a businessman and not elected to Rajya Sabha.

“I gave Rs 70,000 nearly five years ago to Theba to get a fire NOC for a project. I have learnt he is now being questioned by police for his alleged role in the game zone fire. I just wanted to highlight that corruption is widespread and I have made representations about it in the past too,” Mokariya said. He added that the fire officer had returned the money to him after he became a Rajya Sabha member.

“Everyone knows that corruption is everywhere. I have been exposing corrupt officials for a long time. In the past, I had openly said that Rajkot’s town planning officer had been indulging in corruption for the last 10 years,” Mokariya said.

Mokariya is the founder-chairman of a well-known courier company and was elected to the upper house of Parliament from Gujarat in 2021.

The Gujarat government has suspended seven officials, including two police inspectors, after the TRP Game Zone fire on May 25 killed 27 people, including children. Five persons, including the owners of the game zone, have been arrested so far, while three IPS officers have been shunted out of Rajkot after the tragedy.

The Gujarat High Court on Monday came down heavily on RMC over the fire, saying it did not have faith in the state machinery, which gets into action only after innocent lives are lost. The court asked the RMC if it had turned a blind eye to such a big structure coming up in its vicinity after the civic body’s lawyer submitted that the TRP Game Zone, which was set up in the city’s Nana-Mava locality, had not sought requisite permissions.