Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan (agency file)As more and more people connected with the Vyapam Recruitment scam of Madhya Pradesh are dying, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its high command are confronted with an unprecedented crisis of confidence. The latest deaths - of a journalist who had gone to the state to investigate; of a dean who was found dead in a hotel and of a probationary police sub inspector whose body was found in a lake - have shaken the state government. The primary whistleblower in the case has alleged that he has received more than a dozen threats. He travels by bicycle, carrying the lone police security guard on the bicycle's pillion. The opposition, led by the Congress, has been alleging the involvement and patronage of senior leaders of BJP and even pointed an accusing finger at Shivraj Chouhan who will complete ten years as Chief Minister this November.
It is not the first time that recruitment scams have happened in the country, involving large number of recruits and accused. In Haryana, former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala and his son are serving a prison sentence, after being convicted in a teacher recruitment scam. But these kind of mysterious deaths are unheard of. However there has been mysterious deaths of seven witnesses in the rape charge against jailed spiritual leader Asaram Bapu.
The investigations in the Vyapam Scandal were being carried out by a Special Investigation Team of the state police, set up on the orders of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, till the Supreme Court ordered a CBI probe. The team was not able to take proactive steps to protect the witnesses and accused in the case. The state government, which has been on the defensive because of the involvement of a minister in the scam, has also not mobilised the official machinery in the districts, especially the police, to instil confidence.
The police have always gone the extra mile to insist that there have been only six deaths of accused who are in custody and there are magisterial inquiries ordered in the cases. One unofficial theory floated in government circles is that since the case was being monitored by the high court, local courts were reluctant to give bail to the accused and long stay in prison had adversely affected the morale of those who had got jobs by paying bribes. This is used to justify the deaths as suicides, especially as the government hospitals have given cause of death as natural or accidental. The state government has also not confirmed whether it has checked with witnesses on threats they are facing, in view of the large number of mysterious deaths, which has made them psychologically and physically insecure.
The Chief Minister has resisted the demand to hand over the investigation of the deaths to the Central Bureau of Investigation saying that the Vyapam scam investigation is monitored by the High Court. He has argued that the special investigation team is capable and independent. But the Bharatiya Janata Party which had demanded a CBI probe as an opposition party in Karnataka into the mysterious death of IAS officer D K Ravi, is being asked why it is not applying the same standard in Madhya Pradesh.
In keeping with his policy of maintaining silence on controversial issues, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not made a public comment on Vyapam Scandal and the mysterious deaths. But he can consider doing what Sonia Gandhi did in the D K Ravi Case. The Congress President had asked Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to hand over the case to CBI. Similarly the BJP High Command led by Modi can advise Chauhan on what should be done to stop the cycle of deaths. The party has to make its own audit on whether there have been administrative and political failures and if there are shortcomings, then it needs to fix responsibility.
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