BJP links Rahul Gandhi aide to CWG scam

New Delhi : India?s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday linked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi?s aide Kanishk Singh to Commonwealth Games (CWG) corruption scandals.

?What are the connections of Mr. Kanishk Singh, a close aide of Mr. Rahul Gandhi, with the proprietors of the EMAAR MGF, the company which built filthy CWG flats?,? asked BJP national president Nitin Gadkari on Thursday.

?At whose instance the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) paid a bailout package of Rs. 750 Crore plus Rs. 827 Crore for the international zone? Don?t you think merely invoking EMAAR MGF bank guarantee for not fulfilling the responsibility is only an eye-wash to absolve Rahul Gandhi?s aide Kanishk Singh and his family?? Gadkari asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

He further said: ?Why no criminal action has been taken so far against the Prasar Bharti CEO Shri B.S. Lalli who overruled the objections by the Finance Department and gave the Rs 246-crore telecast rights of the Commonwealth Games to an illegal entity which produced a fake registration number and had no service tax number??

?Is Mr. Lalli, who speedily paid out 80% of the contract fee even before the Games concluded, is being shielded because of his high connections??

Gadkari said it is ?astonishing? that the UPA government has so far maintained a ?studied silence? over the findings of the Income Tax department that the broadcast deal was bagged by a little-known UK-based company, SIS Live, which came into being in January 2010, four months after the bidding formalities were over.

The Income Tax department on October 6, 2010, sent a letter to Prasar Bharati asking it to freeze all future payments while seeking attachment of the company’s account in a Mumbai branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland, said the BJP chief.

?When I-T officials surveyed SIS Live office in Delhi they found that the company had maintained no accounts nor kept any bills. Further probe revealed SIS Live had violated several conditions.

? It had outsourced the work to a company, Zoom Communications, which was also found to be operating from the same premises in Okhla. SIS Live officials failed to produce the papers related to the sub-contract worth Rs 177 Crore.

?In its observation, the I-T report says SIS Live was formed ?solely with the purpose of…implementing the CWG contract…and the assessee is not likely to remain in India?.”

Gadkari said the PM can?t deny the fact that the provision of Rs. 126 Crore in the plan budget of the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports for overlays in the year 2009-2010 was revised to 687 Crore of which Rs. 557 crore was given as an advance to the Organising Committee.

The BJP leader demanded explanation from the PM over the ticketing mess at CWG.

?Whom will you blame for the dismal turnout for the CWG events and the ticketing mess? Are you aware of the fact that only half of the eleven & a half lakh tickets printed were bought by spectators?

?I think you must have been told by your Sports Minister that widespread ticketing bungling was reported during the Oct. 3 opening & the Oct. 14 closing ceremony with spectators complaining that they were often surrounded by empty seats, despite officials claiming that all tickets had been sold out.?

?Whom are you going to make a scapegoat for indiscriminate printing of complimentary tickets and multiple tickets with the same seat numbers for the opening and closing ceremonies?,?

Gadkari further said: ?The behind-the ?scene actors in the CWG scam can be unmasked only by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) which the BJP has been demanding in Parliament & outside.?

While the Games concluded successfully and without any untoward incident and the foreign guests departed with a feel-good taste of Indian culture and hospitality, the shame the country was subjected to ahead of the Games was not forgotten with much of the finger pointing towards CWG Organising Committee chief Suresh Kalmadi for the glitches.

He even picked up the PM on the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

?What is preventing you from answering a simple question about the lengthy delay on your part in taking a decision on a plea to sanction the prosecution of Mr. A Raja in the controversial 2-G spectrum allocation issue. Why don?t you explain it to the people,? said Gadkari.

Telecom Minister A Raja last Sunday resigned while a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the huge losses to the exchequer (Rs 1.76 lakh crore) was tabled in Parliament.