No clean chit given to anyone in Mandsaur firing: Digvijay

Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh has said the police firing incident at Mandsaur, in which six farmers were killed during the previous BJP government in Madhya Pradesh, will be re-investigated and no clean chit has been given to anyone in the case.

A controversy had erupted when Home Minister Bala Bachchan told the assembly early this week that the 2017 police action was in "self-defence" and "to protect government and private properties", virtually endorsing the stand taken by the Shivraj Singh Chouhan administration.

The written statement had left the state Congress, which had made the Mandsaur police firing a key election issue, red-faced. The Congress came to power in Madhya Pradesh last year after a gap of 15 years.

"The police firing in Mandsaur district that left six farmers dead in June 2017 (during an agitation) will be re- investigated. No clean chit has been given to anyone in it," Singh told reporters Wednesday night on the sidelines of a function near here.

"BJP men and officers (considered close to the party) were still sitting pretty in lower rung in the (Congress) government. These people were behind such a reply on the floor of the assembly," the Rajya Sabha member claimed.

Bachchan's reply Monday had riled the former chief minister, who had publicly expressed his displeasure.

Talking to reporters Tuesday, Singh had said the "clean chit" given to the BJP by the Congress minister, whose statement virtually "justified" the police firing on farmers, was not acceptable to him.

As the row gathered pace, the Congress government scrambled to control the damage. Tuesday evening, the Kamal Nath administration took a u-turn, claiming it had not given any clean chit and was still scrutinising the inquiry report into the firing incident.

Bachchan, in a hurriedly called press conference Tuesday, had claimed, "The government has not given any clean chit to those guilty of police firing and is still in the process of scrutinising the inquiry report."