By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent,
Kochi: The Kerala state executive of the Communist Party of India demanded the resignation of E Ahmed, central minister of State for Railways, on account of the judicial probe ordered in the Haj quota scam. The Haj quota allocation underwent large scale irregularities when Ahmed was the minister of state for external affairs. Corruption of thousands of rupees took place by the allocation of quota for private agencies. Ahmed should be removed from the ministry so as to bring to light all details regarding the Haj quota scam, said the CPI.
CPI (M) state general secretary Pinarayi Vijayan also had asked for the resignation of Ahmed last day. The party’s youth wing DYFI has alleged that Ahmed had misused his position and connections to influence the Saudi royal family into providing favours to the Al Hind Tours, a private agency based in Kozhikode.
Minister of External Affairs SM Krishna ordered for a judicial probe into the matter on August 27. This created widespread discontent in the Muslim League which has always stood with the Congress party. Congress leaders from Kerala too are reported to have expressed their discontent in the matter. The minister, when speaking to the CNN-IBN, said that lessons from the past years would be taken into account while allotting quota to private Haj operators from now on. The quota list of private Haj groups is to be ready within three days, as per media reports.
Allegations against central Minister E Ahmed of favouring private Haj agencies was brought to light by the CNN-IBN channel on Wednesday. The channel alleged that corruption was involved in the allocation of Haj quota to private Haj groups when E Ahmed was the minister in charge of Haj Affairs in the last UPA government. Saudi Arabia had sanctioned a quota of 1,57,000 seats for Haj pilgrims from India last year. Only 1,04,000 were allotted for Haj committees in various states and 6000 went to the Ministry of External Affairs. The rest 47,000 were given to private travel groups. The channel alleged that corruption was involved in the allotment to private groups.
While each travel agency was allotted 155 seats on an average, Al Hind Travels in Kozhikode was allotted 1,700 seats. Those going for Haj on government quota need pay only around Rs 50,000 whereas private Haj groups charge up to Rs 2 lakh per person. While the state Haj committees select the pilgrims through ballots, private agencies are reported to sell the seats for higher payments.
Private agencies are allowed only 600 seats generally but the allotment of 1,700 to Al Hind is due to the corrupt money involved, alleges the channel. Al Hind reportedly charges Rs 2 lakh per person for the Haj pilgrimage.
Muslim organizations like the Jamat-e Islami had raised the issue of irregularities in the allotment of Haj quota during the recent elections. The left parties in the state had then taken up the issue as a weapon against E Ahmed. TK Hamsa, Ahmed’s opponent in the election and former MP of CPI (M), alleged that Ahmed had sold Haj seats for money. However, Ahmed won the elections in a huge margin of over 1 lakh votes.