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Probe into mining scam is ‘eyewash’: BJP

BHUBANESWAR: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday said that the ongoing vigilance probe into the multi-crore mining illegal scam was nothing but an eyewash.

The party demanded that the Naveen Patnaik government hand over the cases relating to the mining scam to the Central Bureau of Investigation for a fair probe and action against the guilty.

Addressing a press conference here after their visit to Keonjhar district to survey illegal mining activities, a team of senior leaders of the party from New Delhi said so far the vigilance department of the State government had only initiated action against a few officials and mines operators.

The bureaucrats, Ministers and politicians involved in the scam had not been touched by the vigilance sleuths, observed Balbir Punj, senior leader who led the team of party leaders to Keonjhar.

Mr. Punj further pointed out that the vigilance department had also not seized the equipments used in illegal mining even in a single case.

Mr. Punj and former Rajya Sabha member Chandan Mitra said rampant illegal mining and smuggling of minerals worth thousands of crores of rupees was still going on in the mineral-rich district.

Many big private mining companies as well as the State-run Orissa Mining Corporation were also carrying out illegal mining in the reserve forest land by going out of their leased areas, they alleged.

Reacting to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s reaction that BJP’s allegations were politically-motivated, the BJP leaders said they would take up the issue at the national level in the interests of the people of the State.

If Mr. Patnaik and his government were not involved in the scandal, they should accept the demand for a CBI probe to come out clean, they said.

They said the party MPs would take up the illegal mining issue in both houses of Parliament and also submit a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pointing out the cases of illegal mining and gross violation of forest and mining laws.

The leaders also opposed the handing over of more than 6000 acres of land for the proposed Vedanta University project on the outskirts of Puri town. The party would oppose the handing over the hundreds of acres of agricultural land that belonged to small and marginal farmers, they said.

They also blamed the Biju Janata Dal government for the farmers’ suicides being reported from different regions of the State.

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