By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The war of words between BJP and NPP seems unlikely to die down soon.
A day after NPP President WR Kharlukhi rejected the startling allegations of gross misappropriation of central grants by the district councils, BJP state president Ernest Mawrie stuck to his gun of corruption in the district councils further widening the chasm among the MDA allies.
In a strongly worded rebuttal on Friday Mawrie said that it was not surprising to see leaders running under the cover of ‘charges-are-unsubstantiated’ and ‘allegations-are-baseless’ after BJP exposed the corruption in two councils — GHADC and JHADC.
Mawrie retaliated by saying, “We came out to the press only after substantial proof of blatant corruption surfaced. Some of these documents were made available to the press too! While these documents have not been published, we assure to people of Meghalaya that we have submitted all the documents with our request for a CBI enquiry”.
Stating that some proof is there for the public to see, he added that almost 50 per cent of all project undertaken by the GHADC are only on papers as money has been spent on footbridges that only take people across mirage of development over barren grounds.
“The EM of the JHADC came out and accepted that they had paid salaries with money meant for the benefit of the people. Please note that this is a whopping sum of Rs 20 crore that was diverted. Moreover, this ‘temporary arrangement’ is making a mockery of the funds received under the central scheme,” he said.
According to Mawrie, instead of worrying about whether the state BJP has discussed the matter with their legislators, or whether the charges have been made with the approval of the central leadership, it would have really boosted the people’s confidence if for once, the leaders of different parties would have raised concern over the corruption that the BJP has unearthed.
With regard to stepping down of the State Party president, he said that NPP president, W. Kharlukhi has no authority to comment on the internal matters of a national party.
“First he needs to update himself on who are in the NDA alliance, as recently after being elected, he had named potential Prime Ministerial candidates from the eastern region, the likes of Tarun Gogoi and Mamata Banerjee,” Mawrie said while taking a jibe at the Rajya Sabha MP. “After the CBI inquiry proves that there is serious corruption then it will be Kharlukhi who will have to resign as State Party President and Rajya Sabha MP,” he said.
A correction
In our report “State BJP unearths scam in three district councils” (Sept 9), it was erroneously mentioned that BJP president had found alleged links between NPP president and scam in GHADC. The BJP statement, in fact, had mentioned chief minister’s kin.