By IANS,
Shillong : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Meghalaya Wednesday demanded the resignation of senior Congress legislator and former assembly speaker Martin M. Danggo and a CBI probe into corruption charges against him.
The Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report, in two successive reports in as many years, has pointed to fund misappropriation during Danggo’s tenure as speaker. The alleged misappropriation runs into crores of rupees of public money.
Dubbing the Congress-led Meghalaya United Alliance government as “spineless”, the BJP said nothing was being done even after the CAG reported that crores of public money was swindled over the years.
“The attitude of this (MUA) government is only to loot the tax payers’ money,” said Dipayan Chakraborty, general secretary of the BJP’s Meghalaya unit.
The BJP demanded that the corruption charges be probed by the CBI instead of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and also sought Danggo’s resignation.
This is not the first instance of the CAG unearthing financial mismanagement during Danggo’s tenure as the speaker. Danggo allegedly did not hand over goods installed in his official residence before vacating it in May 2008.
Included in the list of items were two 50-inch Sony LCD TVs worth Rs.787,500, one PIV Lenovo worth Rs.140,712, one air-conditioner worth Rs.192,440, three wall fans worth Rs.23,400.
A cycling machine, treadmill, weight machine, TFT monitor and revolving chair were also purchased by the then speaker. Moreover, two dining tables worth Rs.103,500, a 2857.14 sq m carpet worth Rs.23 lakh were purchased, according to the CAG report.
After last year’s CAG report, the assembly referred the alleged corruption charges to the PAC as mandated by the constitution, but so far no action has been taken by the committee.