Fearing poaching, Sena to herd all corporators to undisclosed location

PATNA POLICE’S Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing the leak of question papers of the Bihar Staff Selection Commission’s (BSSC) exam, has said senior IAS officer and commission chairman Sudhir Kumar played a key role in the leak.

This comes at a time the Bihar branch of IAS Officers’ Association has protested against Kumar’s arrest.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has, however, asked the SIT not to be “cowed down by any pressure”.

SSP Manu Maharaj, who heads the SIT, told The Indian Express on Wednesday that Kumar “breached confidentiality about the question papers” and provided them to seven of his relatives 13 days before the second phase of the four-phase exam.

The exams were for recruitment of clerks and assistants.

Maharaj added that as BSSC chairman, Kumar was the sole custodian of question papers and OMR sheets.

“When the leak surfaced after the February 5 exam, Kumar categorically denied the leak and we believed him. But when he gave false names of two paper setters, we were alarmed. In BSSC, no person other than the chairman knows where questions and OMR sheets are printed. We later found out they were printed in Gujarat.”

The SSP said subsequent investigation and arrest of Kumar’s nephew Ashish, who took the exam, revealed how he and some others reached Kumar’s Hazaribagh residence on January 23 and got a question paper. “Five relatives of Sudhir Kumar who wrote the exam were Ashish and Arun (nephews), Manju Devi (brother’s wife), Hariom and Ranjan (sons of Manju’s aunt). Names of two more relatives are with us,” the officer said but did not reveal them.

Last week, Kumar was arrested at his Hazaribagh residence. His brother Awadhesh and his wife Manju were held in Hajipur. Kumar’s nephew Ashish, a “mediator” Sajjad Ahmed and BSSC IT manager Niti Ranjan Prasad were arrested in Patna.

Maharaj said Kumar’s father Radha Prasad is also under the scanner. “Ashish has claimed that he got the paper from his grandfather Radha Prasad. We are investigating further,” said the SSP.

He said Ashish had confessed to involvement in several question paper leaks.

Explaining how the question papers were leaked, Maharaj said: “After the question papers reached Kumar’s relatives, it was Ranjan who thought of selling it to a candidate for Rs 6 lakh. Later, Ashish joined him.”

He added that the phone details of Kumar suggested that he was in constant touch with Ashish and the other relatives. “We are studying his monetary transactions to know if he or his family benefited from the leak. We are also trying to find out if Kumar influenced any question setter to leak the paper.”

Responding to the demand of Bihar IAS officers to hand over the investigation to the CBI, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said: “Seeking a CBI investigation has now become a fashion. We have to trust our police. Also, the Opposition BJP must not behave like an investigating agency.” A DAY after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to apprise him of the political situation in the state, the Shiv Sena leadership has started preparations to herd all its corporators to an undisclosed location.

The party also held a meeting of its senior ministers to chart out its political strategy in case the relationship between the two parties deteriorates further. Both the BJP and the Shiv Sena are battling it out for the mayoral poll in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), with neither willing to back down.

Both failed to get the 114 votes needed to have their own candidate as mayor. This has led to a race to shore up support from all possible quarters, including structuring new alliances to take control of the municipal corporation.

The Sena now fears the BJP may use its hold over the administration and its financial resources to trump it in the BMC.

“The situation in the state is fluid and the meeting was about what party leaders thought is the way forward,” a senior Shiv Sena leader said.

Interestingly, Maharashtra’s energy minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule of the BJP visited Uddhav Thackeray’s residence. Bawankule said there was no political agenda and that he had gone to invite Thackeray for a wedding in the family.

The party is also considering sending all its corporators to an undisclosed location to ensure that there is no poaching of candidates.

On Tuesday, the Shiv Sena had appointed Yashwant Jadhav, a senior corporator, as its group leader. Jadhav, along with the 88 corporators including four independent corporators, registered themselves with the Konkan Divisional commissioner as a group.