Students jailed in Vyapam scam be made witnesses: Digvijay Singh

NEW DELHI: Buoyed by the Supreme Court handing over the Vyapam scam probe to CBI, Congress leader Digvijay Singh today demanded that students jailed in the case should be made prosecution witnesses to expose the "nexus" between corrupt officials, police and politicians in the scandal "bigger than the 2G scam".

Singh, who has been spearheading the campaign for an apex court-monitored CBI probe in the scam, said he does not expect Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to resign as "we do not expect morality from the BJP".

Asked whether he would demand that Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav, who is allegedly involved in the scam, should quit, he said that he would "appeal" to the Governor to resign instead of making the demand.

"The Governor had fallen in bad company, so he will have to suffer", he said taking a dig at Chouhan.

Singh said, "Students who were made to believe that money was the only way to get admission to higher education in the state are behind bars but those who took the bribe are roaming free," while making a strong pitch for freeing the students and making them prosecution witnesses so that they could expose the corrupt people.

Targeting the Centre and BJP, the Congress leader said that it removed Governors against whom there was no FIR, but retained the one against whom there was an FIR.

Singh, a former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, declared that his campaign would now be aimed against the sand mafia in the state which has already taken three lives, including that of a young IAS officer.

Claiming that Vyapam is a "bigger scam" than 2G spectrum allocation scandal, he said that it is for the first time that a record number of people are in jails in the case which has also seen a large number of deaths. Some 2,000 people are in jails and 600 are still absconding, he said.

Singh alleged that there was an RSS link to the scam, claiming that the names of some of its leaders had cropped up in the case.

"Vyapam has also spread to Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Rajasthan and I am collecting information on it", Singh said without further elaborating.

The Congress leader said it is the first time when corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and police officers, along with middlemen, have cheated lakhs of students.

Taking a dig at the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, he said, "Thank God...God has now given him (Shivraj) wisdom... Both Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Shivraj Singh Chouhan have had to take a U-turn."

He welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court in ordering a CBI probe into all Vyapam scam cases and alleged deaths related to it, saying the country's faith in judiciary has increased.