Congress accuses Modi govt of ‘mafia-style’ tactics on CAG transfers

NEW DELHI | Updated: 11 October, 2023 2:33 pm IST

Jairam Ramesh charged the Modi government of behaving like the "mafia" for having transferred three CAG officials following corruption revelations

NEW DELHI: After the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) issued reports highlighting financial improprieties within the Narendra Modi government, it has been reported that three officials responsible for overseeing two of the 12 reports presented in Parliament have been relocated or reassigned.

Modi Government transfers 3 CAG officers, Congress reacts

On Tuesday, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh took to X to depict the party’s disdain over the transfers highlighting that the CAG officials were removed to hide the “blatant corruption in the Modi government”.

“The Modi government operates mafia style under a cloak of silence and intimidation. If anyone exposes its modus operandi of corruption, they are threatened or removed. The latest victims are three officers of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), who exposed massive scams in government schemes in a report tabled during the Monsoon Session of Parliament,” Ramesh wrote.

https://t.co/1rMgd6hEBh

The Modi government operates mafia style under a cloak of silence and intimidation. If anyone exposes its modus operandi of corruption, they are threatened or removed. The latest victims are three officers of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG),…

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) October 11, 2023

The three officials were reportedly in charge of reporting on Modi’s Ayushman Bharat scheme and the Dwarka Expressway. As of now, it has been reported that the director general of the Central Expenditure audit report has been “transferred and posted as Director (legal) in this office against an existing vacancy.” The order also states that the director general of the North Central region has been transferred as Director General of Rajbhasha, holding the additional post of director general (exam) in the CAG office “till further orders”.

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The Dwarka Expressway report said that the National Highways Authority of India’s decision to opt for an elevated carriageway in the Haryana portion had pushed up costs to Rs 250.77 crore per kilometre from the approved cost of Rs 18.20 crore per kilometre.

Numerous claims were persistently filed for people who were marked as “deceased” in the database. The report also revealed that 1.57 lakh distinct IDs appeared multiple times in the database, despite the programme’s requirement that each person should possess only one Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana ID after verification.