Congress submits chargesheet against Naveen govt to President

The state unit of Congress party has submitted a memorandum to President Pratibha Patil containing a series of allegation against the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government and requested her to order a probe by independent agencies into these charges.

Starting from two-year old mining scam to recently surfaced cases such as irregularities in rural job guarantee and mid-day meal cases, the opposition party said, “the rule of law has become the greatest casualty”.

Citing a Centrally Empowered Committee report, the party suspected unholy nexus between government officials and miners and estimated the scale of mining scam could top Rs two lakh crore as irregularities have not been checked for a decade. Terming it as mother of all scams, it said the ongoing vigilance investigation to the mining scam is 'more an exercise to shield the culprits' and demanded CBI investigation for it.

The charge sheet cited Comptroller and Accounting General (CAG) of India report which pointed out irregularities in mineral raising by Aditya Birla Group promoted Essel Mining and Rungta Mining and said, the state government has not taken any action so far. It further alleged that the state government has showed undue favour to Hindustan Aluminium Company (Hindalco) and Reliance Energy, which has not paid its dues amounting to crores of rupees to the state exchequer.

Taking a dig at the state government, the Congress criticised the double standard attitude of BJD government in the Lok Pal issue. It said, while the state government supports a stronger Lok Pal bill at the Central level, it did not take action on a state Lokpal recommendation regarding land grant to Vedanta University. The Orissa High Court has, however, ordered the government to return the land and said the land acquisition for the proposed varsity was illegal.

The report highlighted complains regarding misuse of Central government provided funds and schemes and farmers' suicide. It also focused about widespread Left extremism in the state and said the growing violence is due to mismanagement and neglect of tribal development.

“We have earlier drawn the attention of the state Governor regarding these issues, but I am sorry to say that no action has been taken yet. Therefore, we expressed our grievances to the President of India,” Narasimha Mishra, a senior leader of Orissa Congress said.