Thrown out of Assembly, Digvijaya holds press conference on road

BHOPAL: AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh was barred from speaking to media on MPPEB recruitments scam inside Madhya Pradesh state assembly on Tuesday afternoon. The senior Congress leader who has been chief minister for 10 years from 1993 to 2003, MLA for five terms, cabinet minister for five years and is presently a Rajya Sabha member from the state was shown the rule book and told “outsiders” were not permitted to address the press in the assembly campus.
Singh, who has recently become aggressive on Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) recruitments scam and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week on the issue, suddenly seemed to have become a target of BJP state government’s wrath. Since 2008, Singh has not been an MLA and ceased to be a part of assembly. Nevertheless, on his visits to Bhopal during assembly sessions, he would speak to television channels and print journalists at the media centre on first floor of Vidhan Sabha building.
Rules abruptly changed from Tuesday when the senior Congress leader followed by a crowd of journalists was approaching the media centre. The former CM was stopped by security marshals who handed him a notice from the assembly secretariat, saying he was barred from holding a press conference at the media centre. Singh then took the lift to the first floor to meet the print media and was disallowed even there.
Miffed with BJP government’s behaviour, Digvijaya Singh decided to hold a press conference on the streets outside the state assembly compound. Flanked by Congress MLAs, Singh who retains the record of being the state’s chief minister for the longest term, stood on the pavement beside a thoroughfare opposite the main entrance of the Vidhan Sabha and spoke to scribes.
“How many voices are they going to stifle? Middlemen of this corrupt government have crushed the hopes of an entire generation. Meritorious youth have been denied jobs and admission into medical colleges while the despicable have been recruited,” Digvijaya Singh said. “To choke my voice, they searched a 20-year-old case of appointments in the assembly and registered an FIR. If I faltered on any account during my lifetime, let BJP government register cases. But I will keep exposing the Vyapam scam.”
The Congress leader argued the BJP state government is angry as tampering of evidence in the Vyapam cases has been proved by a Hyderabad-based forensic laboratory. He said even though he submitted evidence to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, action has not being initiated because the “corruption is rampant in other BJP-ruled states.”
“This kind of scams also occurred in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. If action is taken against chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, other chief ministers might also have to step down,” Digvijaya said.