BJP cries Buta cover-up, wants CBI probe

The vigilance inquiry was aimed at covering up the role of Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, Rabri Devi and other leaders of the RJD and LJP who were ‘‘directly responsible’’ for the siphoning off of central aid meant for flood relief, he said.

Modi pointed out that the scam was first unearthed on August 21, 2004, and on that day itself, Flood Commissioner Ashok Vardhan had noted in his file that a vigilance inquiry be ordered. But Bihar’s chief secretary, on the orders of Laloo Prasad Yadav, sat on the file for eight months and an inquiry was finally ordered only after the expose in The Indian Express, Modi charged.

Alleging that the ‘‘scamsters’’ were patronised by Laloo and Rabri (Santosh Jha had close business dealings with Sadhu Yadav and used to issue advertisements hailing Laloo and Rabri while Gautam Goswami was Laloo’s ‘blue-eyed and handpicked boy’), he alleged that a lot of the money that was siphoned off was transferred to the RJD’s election fund.

Buta Singh’s lack of interest in pursuing the case could be gauged from the fact that even after the expose, ‘‘not a single FIR has been lodged, not a single arrest has been made, not a single interrogation has taken place and no bank accounts have been frozen’’, Modi said.

Asked why he was demanding a CBI enquiry when BJP leaders had dismissed it as a ‘‘Congress Bureau of Investigation’’, Modi said the agency was better than the state vigilance department that in the past 15 years of RJD rule had been used for ‘‘blackmailing officers’’. As in the fodder scam, the inquiry into the flood relief scam too should be monitored by a court or a judge, he added.

To press their demand for a CBI inquiry, all newly-elected BJP MLAs will march to the Raj Bhavan in Patna on May 10 and submit a memorandum to the Governor. If he does not agree to their demand, the BJP will launch a statewide andolan,’’ Modi said.