Congress on why MP voters should reject BJP

The opposition Congress in Madhya Pradesh has released a 96-page charge-sheet against the state BJP government in which it has levelled a total of 139 allegations against it.

The charge-sheet was released at a press conference on Thursday by the state Congress president Suresh Pachouri in the presence of party general secretary Narayansami, state in charge.

Pachouri said that BJP in its manifesto for the December 2003 assembly elections, had made a large number of promises to the people and most of these remained unfulfilled.

He said that it had promised to sort out the power situation in the state within 100 days of coming to power, but the present state of affairs with regard to electricity was much worse than what it was in 2003.

The state Congress president said the BJP government was busy charging the Centre with not giving it enough funds when the reality was that even all the money that was received from the Centre remained unutilised.

Pachouri said that the state of corruption under the BJP government could well be imagined by the fact that the Lokayukta was investigating into corruption charges against the chief minister and several of his ministers.

He said three BJP minister had been removed from their posts after they faced corruption charges and said that an FIR had been filed even against the chief minister in the dumper scandal.

The state Congress president said that the charge-sheet was prepared by a 22-member committee under the chairmanship of the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, Jamuna Devi.

The state Congress president said that under the BJP government, malnutrition had touched tremendous heights, the law and order situation had worsened and a large number of communal incidents had taken place.

When asked if the Congress had proof for all the allegations made in the charge-sheet, Congress general secretary V Narayansami asserted that it had proof for all the charges.

Asked further what proof the Congress had to contend that machines for counting currency notes were installed in the chief minister's residence, he countered by saying: "Let the BJP take us to court."

The charge-sheet claimed that not only was the chief minister himself corrupt, there were corruption charges against 25 ministers.

Pachouri said that on the one hand, the chief minister was staging drama by riding bicycle to the office and on the other the state government had wasted crores of rupees on travel by ministers in planes and helicopters owned by private companies.

He said that there was no excuse for this as the state government had its own choppers.