By IANS
Lucknow : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has recommended one more case for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry though at least six such references are already pending with the central government.
On Monday, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in the state sought a CBI probe into irregularities in police recruitment. That is the seventh case Mayawati wants the central investigative agency to take care of since she came to power in May 2007.
Soon after she assumed the office, Mayawati referred the case of BSP legislator Raju Pal’s murder in Allahabad to the CBI. The murder had taken place more than a year earlier while her archrival Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav was in power.
This was followed by another controversy surrounding the registration of a criminal case against some of Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh’s family members in Moradabad that the chief minister referred to the central government for a CBI inquiry.
Shortly thereafter came the issue of ‘out of turn’ allotment of prime plots in Noida by the Yadav government that was also lobbed into the CBI lap.
Yet another case to be sent to CBI was the alleged involvement of Mayawati’s cabinet minister Anand Sen in the kidnapping and murder of a young girl in Faizabad. She also promptly dropped the minister.
Then came the scam involving large-scale pilferage of food grain from the pubic distribution system with the connivance of some senior Indian Administrative (IAS) officials. The chief minister referred that case to the CBI too.
And more recently, it was the alleged involvement of top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders including president Rajnath Singh in the release of a controversial CD during campaign for the last state assembly elections.
Each of the references was made at a juncture when the state police machinery had actually completed the bulk of the spadework.
For example, the CD case was recommended for a CBI probe after police had already found evidence about a BJP hand and had filed a charge sheet against Singh as well as state BJP leader Lalji Tandon.
In the police recruitment scam, the state government had not only sacked as many as 18,000 constables recruited during the previous Yadav government, but some 25 Indian Police Service (IPS) officers heading the selection committees were also suspended. While the new recruits were rendered jobless, Mayawati reinstated all allegedly guilty officers.