Congress has no moral right to demand home minister’s resignation over PSI scam: CM Basavaraj Bommai

Speaking to the media, the Chief Minister said, “The test question papers had leaked during the Congress regime. A case was registered and a senior police officer was found to be the accused. What happened later? Forget about arresting him, they did not even bother to question him. We have given a free hand to the officers to conduct a thorough investigation. We have zero tolerance for such irregularities. We are working with an objective to cleanse the system; whether it is the top officers or the lower rung personnel; we will get to the bottom of the case. If Congress would have been in power, they would have buried the case. They have done it in the past.”

So far, around 50 persons, including 20 police officers, have been arrested in the recruitment scam case. “We have not tried to cover up anything or protect anyone. There is no question of anyone quitting,” Bommai said.

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief D K Shivakumar had demanded Jnanendra’s resignation and had said that the minister had lied in the state Assembly that there was no malpractice in the examination. “He should take responsibility and resign from the post,” Shivakumar had said.

Jnanendra on Monday evening had said that the government has given free hands to the police to conduct the inquiry and the probe will remain transparent. “When Congress was in power, there was recruitment of APPs, there were irregularities and then the government did not react. They did not even suspend the 60 APPs who were in question, something that we did. I will tell D K Shivakumar, the in-service police officials who have been arrested were selected during their term. We are not trying to suppress any information and the probe will take its own course.”

Tuesday, Bommai said, “Not much information was available on the case at that point of time. What he did after getting the information, how efficient he was in exposing the irregularities are what matter. The case would not have come out if the government would not have been keen to investigate it. The CID and ACB have done a good job.”