Large-scale graft at golden jubilee fest: Manohar Lal Khattar's adviser

GURUGRAM: Rocky Mittal, the newly appointed publicity adviser to chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, on Thursday alleged that “large-scale corruption” took place during the state’s golden jubilee celebrations in Gurgaon.
But Mittal was caught on the wrong foot when reporters he was talking to during the visit to the city pointed out that his official vehicle was fitted with a red beacon, a privilege he is not entitled to.Embarrassed, Mittal made an attempt to defend himself, feigning ignorance while the reporters were reading him out the rule book. “I was not aware that I am not supposed to have a red beacon on my car,” Mittal said.
Just a few minutes ago, he had claimed a senior IAS officer who was made in-charge of organising the Haryana Swarna Jayanti celebrations in Gurgaon gave contracts to people known to him, while talking about alleged corruption during the event.
“Over Rs 11 crore was splurged on organising the event, which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. All the cultural activities that were organised for the mega event were given to people known to the senior officer. This event could have been organised in less than Rs 6 crore. In fact, a prominent singer was paid Rs 25 lakh for the event. The CM has constituted a committee to probe this extra expenditure and find out who all were responsible for it,” he said.
He also said that a list of corrupt officials is being prepared by the state information and public relations department.
“The probe team will soon come out with a list of all corrupt officials and this list will be made public. The chief minister is being misled by several senior IAS officers and they are not allowing him to take the right decisions,” Mittal added.
Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, meanwhile, has ridiculed the idea of chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar having a publicity adviser.
“This government talks about maximum governance and minimum government, but its actions are completely contrary to what it says. There are a host of officers on special duty attached to the CM, and this newly created post of publicity adviser seems to be very strange indeed. I have never heard of such a post existing in Haryana government ever. By creating such posts, the state government is wasting public money,” he said.