Congress to make chit fund scam a poll issue

The state Congress will make the recent exposures on chit fund scam and alleged involvement of some ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) members in it an elections issue.

This along with the multi-crore mining scam in the state will form the core of the partys poll plank for the coming assembly election scheduled in 2014, said the party leaders.

There is evidence of BJD ministers involved in the chit fund scam, which is estimated at Rs 20,000 crore. We will bring this issue before the people of the state, said the newly appointed president of Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC), Jayadeva Jena at a ceremony organised here to felicitate him.

The party, which has been out of power in the state for almost 15 years, will highlight the corruption cases of the BJD government during the campaign, he added.

Chit fund scam has been hitting headlines for couple of weeks after Kolkata-based Saradha Group chief admitted to have laundered money collected from people of West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand and Assam.

The state police, which has began a crackdown on local chit fund companies thereafter, claims that some of the arrested company officials have revealed about involvement of state politicians.

One of the arrested chit fund promoters, Pradeep Sethi of Artha Tatwa group is leant to have told police about paying Rs 75 crore protection money to some ministers, MLAs, bureaucrats, and media personnel. Police also raided and sealed the head office of Seashore group, another large chit fund firm, yesterday.

Apart from corruption issues, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) will organize awareness camps at district level to propagate about central financial assistance to the state, Jena said.

The felicitation meeting was attended by senior Congress leaders including former and existing central ministers. However, outgoing PCC chief Niranjan Patnaik and senior party leader Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra were conspicuous by their absense.

Union Minister, Srikant Jena raised mining scam issue and said that the state government must show its ineffectiveness to check large scale illegal mining.

The BJD hit back saying that the state government has taken enough steps to check fraudulent companies raising money from public.

Regarding illegal mining, the Shah Commission is investigating the matter. Let the probe be completed and we will know who was involved in the scam, said Prabhat Tripathy, BJD chief whip in the assembly.