PM, not Shivraj, wanted CBI probe in Vyapam

tion had become necessary. He conveyed this to the top leadership of the BJP, before leaving for Central Asia and Russia. Once this communication from the PM was received, the same was conveyed to Chouhan by the party leadership,” a senior BJP leader familiar with the development said.

BJP sources said that after the PM’s message, a meeting took place in New Delhi on Monday evening, which was attended by Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, who is the party’s in-charge of Madhya Pradesh, Union ministers Ananth Kumar and Narendra Singh Tomar, Madhya Pradesh BJP president Nand Kumar Chouhan and BJP president Amit Shah. On Tuesday morning, Amit Shah called Chou- han, asking him to seek a CBI inquiry into the scam. It was after this that the MP CM wrote a letter to the Jabalpur High Court, requesting for a CBI inquiry, just 20 minutes before he announced the same in a press conference in Bhopal.

BJP leaders said that the scam, in which at least 45 people directly or indirectly related to Vyapam have been killed or have died mysteriously, has become a cause for huge concern for the party. “News regarding the scam pre-dating to the times when the Congress was in power in the state is also coming in and hence, rather than being on the defensive, the CM should have ordered the CBI inquiry long ago. The allegations against Chouhan do not just affect him but also paints the party and the RSS wrongly, especially at a time when the crucial Bihar elections are just months away,” the leader added. According to senior party leaders, the possibility of shifting Chouhan to Delhi for a “bigger role” as a party functionary can also not be ruled out in the coming weeks. The fact that between December 2008 and March 2012, Chouhan himself held the Medical Education portfolio, when irregularities in the pre-medical test were detected, is also likely to haunt him in the near future. According to Madhya Pradesh based BJP leaders, Chouhan’s image as a man of good governance has been dented because of this scam and the decision to bring in the CBI should have been taken by him on his own, rather than waiting for direc- tions from the party leadership. These sources said that Chouhan might not have been personally involved in the scam, but some of his relatives, who have a history of calling up government servants and MLAs, seeking favours by flaunting their relationship with Chouhan, may have known about the scam. “As is desirable, publicly, every BJP leader has been standing with Chouhan all throughout. However, for how long that would have continued if he had continued with his rigidity on not bringing in the CBI is something that can be gauged from the fact that last week Uma Bharti finally spoke up against him. It would have been much better if he himself had ordered the inquiry,” a senior BJP Rajya Sabha member said.