Digvijay Singh demands Nitin Gadkari's sacking

NEW DELHI: Congress today demanded the immediate sacking of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari alleging that the awarding of the Rs 10,050 crore Zozila pass tunnel contract to IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd was a "clear case of corruption at the highest level".

Party General Secretary Digvijay Singh told reporters at party headquarters that Gadkari, heading the Road Transport and Highways Ministry, has allegedly violated the CVC guidelines while awarding the contract.

However, Gadkari rubbished the charges of corruption and said Singh's allegations were "completely false" as the Ministry followed a transparent e-tender system. He also denied that his son was a director in IRB Infrastructure Developers.

Singh claimed that what was strange and unheard of is that the IRB was the sole bidder for the massive project in Jammu and Kashmir. He said government should have gone in for the Swiss challenge method.

Swiss challenge is a form of public procurement which requires a public authority which has received an unsolicited bid for a public project (such as a port, road or railway) or services to be provided to government, to publish the bid and invite third parties to match or exceed it.

Singh alleged that Gadkari had business dealings with Dattatreya Mhaiskar, head of IRB, which had shares in the controversial Purti group floated by the Minister. He claimed Gadkari's son Nikhil was director for some years in a subsidiary of IRB.

The Congress general secretary said that he met the Chief Vigilance Commissioner K V Chowdhury today and filed a complained citing the relevant evidence. He is also writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking immediate sacking of Gadkari in line with his assertion that his government has 'zero tolerance to corruption'.

"It is a clear case of corruption at the highest level", he said targeting Gadkari, a former BJP chief.

Besides, Singh claimed that Gadkari when he was PWD Minister in Maharashtra some two decades back, had given several contracts to IRB.

"No work in our department is awarded without e-tender. When the tender was floated earlier, only one party bid for it. This time also it was through e-tender. I do not favour anyone," Road Transport and Highways Minister Gadkari said in response to a query here.

Lashing out at Singh, Gadkari said the charges were "completely false" and his "son is not the director in that company."

"My son is not a director in that company ... there is no shareholding. There is no connection with the company. Such false allegations have been levelled several times. I was given clean chit by the Income-tax department during his government only. I dont have even a single rupee business with that...," Gadkari said.

He said only one party had bid for the project earlier and this time also there was only one party and the award was on the basis of a global tender and "no favour" was given to any party.

The tunnel project is part of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Rs 80,000-crore development package for Jammu and Kashmir, which he had announced in November.

The package included Rs 42,611 crore for development of roads and highways in the state. The highways packaged included "construction of Zojila tunnel" as per the PMO.