ENERGY MINISTER LAUNCHES COUNTER ATTACK

LUCKNOW : Launching a counter attack on Smajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav, energy minister Shrikant Sharma alleged that former chief minister called the press conference on Tuesday to save his ‘confidante’, who was being interrogated by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW). “This again proves that his party that was in power then was the mastermind of the provident fund scam,” he said in a statement here. He said the SP chief’s allegations were a bundle of lies. Sharma reiterated that the foundation of the PF scam was laid under the SP regime and the first investment in the unsecured Diwan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFCL) was done also during its government on March 17, 2017. He said it was for the power sector employees’ trust to decide as to where to invest employees’ PF in keeping with the guidelines.