By IANS,
Lucknow: The Congress Tuesday sought the immediate sacking of Uttar Pradesh’s Minister of State for Ambedkar Gram Development Ratan Lal Ahirwar, indicted by the state Lok Ayukta for misappropriation of funds meant for development programmes.
“The minister must either step down from office or else the chief minister must remove him from the cabinet, because the Lok Ayukta has clearly found him guilty of misappropriation of funds,” Congress spokesman V.K. Madan told reporters here.
“It is amply evident now that Ahirwar had not only bungled funds earmarked for special development schemes in the backward Bundelkhand region, but was also guilty of grabbing ‘gram sabha’ (village committee) land,” he added.
Ahirwar was the fourth minister to be indicted by the Lok Ayukta, Justice (retd) N.K. Mehrotra who had, of late, begun to take cognizance of pending complaints against certain ministers.
The Congress also hit out at Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo and Chief Minister Mayawati’s “indifference to this serious menace of rampant corruption”.
“Even though the UP chief minister had dropped dairy development and animal husbandry minister Awadhpal Singh Yadav from her ministry, she had discreetly saved him in a case of triple murder in which he was among the main accused,” alleged Madan.
According to him, “inaction on Mayawati’s part against her ministers involved in criminal offences including bribery had led to unbridled corruption at the highest levels in the government”.
“It is high time Mayawati took strong action against ministers indicted by the Lok Ayukta,” Madan demanded.