New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take action over former Jammu & Kashmir Governor Satyapal Malik’s allegation that RSS functionary Ram Madhav had offered him a bribe of Rs 300 crore to clear files related to the Ambani Group. “We challenge the PM to either file a defamation case against the former J&K Governor or take action against Ram Madhav if Malik’s charges are true,” Congress media head Pawan Khera said. “Why are the CBI and ED not visiting Madhav,”? he questioned.
According to Khera, Malik on Monday named Madhav in the matter during an interview on a YouTube channel and had levelled such allegations earlier also without taking any names. “In October 2021, Satyapal Malik revealed that a senior RSS functionary had offered him a bribe of Rs 300 crore to clear two files related to the Ambani Group. Malik was the Governor of J&K between August 2018 and October 2019 and in October 2021 he was the Governor of Meghalaya,” said Khera.
The Congress media head further said that following Malik’s allegations in 2021, Madhav had accepted that the person referred to by Malik was him and had threatened legal action against the Meghalaya Governor. According to Khera, in his Monday interview, Malik accepted three things. One is that if he had cleared the two files, he would have received Rs 300 crore. Two, one of the files is related to a hydel power project and the other one is related to an insurance company.
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“I stopped private insurance and implemented CGHS. I said that I will do no wrong things at all. The flaw in this is that government officials have to pay money and those four to five hospitals, which were selected in this were third-grade hospitals,” Khera quoted Malik as saying. The third point according to Khera was that Malik said that “Ram Madhav had met me personally at 7 am and he came and advocated for this deal.”
The Congress leader noted that the “CBI has openly questioned the former Governor at its headquarters, but why hasn’t Madhav been called yet.” “The ED, CBI interrogates or raids opposition leaders time and again, but why not the BJP leaders? Why these double standards,” he asked. The Congress leader further targeted the PM saying “Modiji keeps blurting that his government is acting against corruption. Extremely serious allegations have been levelled against Ram Madhav earlier as well. Why hasn’t action been taken yet? Is this not 'save the corrupt campaign.”
According to the Congress leader, Satyapal Malik was now living in a private house in New Delhi and had been given only one personal security officer despite having written two letters to the Centre requesting a Z Plus security cover. “Only one PSO for an ex-Governor and Z plus security for a thug Kiran Patel who visited J&K as a PMO official,” said Khera. The Congress leader also charged that though only 37 per cent of the voters had supported the BJP, the ruling party had offered a ‘buy 1, get 1 free” scheme under which RSS representatives had been posted as OSDs to the Union Ministers.
