Opinion | Scams and Scandals Have Made Chhattisgarh a State of Corruption

The mood on the ground in Chhattisgarh has completely changed in the last couple of months. People are livid over the unending scams that have tumbled out of the Bhupesh Baghel government’s closet. From being in a seemingly good position, the Congress state government is struggling to resist an imminent defeat. This is the result of a perspicacious, persistent, streamlined communication strategy of the BJP, where the focus has primarily been on exposing each of the financial frauds of the state government threadbare.

It goes without saying that the huge response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent rallies in Raigarh and Bilaspur has raised the bar for the state unit. The BJP now senses a win in Chhattisgarh, one that inflicts a body blow to the Congress party’s murky funding model for 2024, disguised as “Mohabbat ki dukaan”.

To understand the magnitude of loot in Chhattisgarh and the impunity with which it was carried out, one will need to get into some of these scams in detail.

Rs 2,161 Crore Liquor Scam

In May 2023, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) busted a Rs 2,161 crore ‘scam’ in Chhattisgarh which was believed to be operated with the help of top politicians and bureaucrats. The ED arrested a key accused, Anwar Dhebar, who was sent to ED custody by a Raipur court. Anwar Dhebar is the brother of Congress leader and Raipur mayor Aijaz Dhebar.

It is noteworthy that Chhattisgarh generates the highest contribution in excise from the liquor circulation in the state. The excise department is responsible for the regulation of the liquor in the state and the quality of the product. The state government also controls all the aspects of liquor trade from procurement to retail sale to consumer sale. No private liquor shops are allowed. All 800 liquor shops are run by the state government.

The accused operated as a private entity, in complete defiance of government regulations, minting illegal money through complicity with select bureaucrats and members of the ruling Congress party in the state. These people had made a fake hologram and illegal country and foreign liquor was sold from it. According to the probe agency, 15 per cent of the commission would go to Anwar Dhebar, and the rest would go to bureaucrats and ruling party politicians in the state.

When the Delhi liquor scam broke out, there were indications that the Opposition had discovered a ‘federal model of corruption’ wherein similar liquor scams were taking place in other Opposition states using similar techniques. The Chhattisgarh Liquor Scam shows amazing symmetry of vile intent between the I.N.D.I alliance partners.

Coal Levy Scam

The Rs 540 crore Coal Levy scam is another big loot unleashed in Chhattisgarh under the close watch of the Baghel government. The exact quantum of this scam is yet in the realm of speculation. As per the ED, a ‘levy’ of Rs 25 was being extorted for every tonne of coal transported in Chhattisgarh by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen. A special PMLA court in Raipur has issued notices to nine accused, including two Congress legislators, in connection with the coal scam case, as the court registered the second supplementary prosecution complaint on Saturday.

In the latest in this case, on September 23, the Special PMLA court of Ajay Singh Rajput issued notices to Congress MLA Devendra Singh Yadav from Bhilai in Durg district and MLA Chandradev Rai from Bilaigarh constituency in Raipur district and six others. According to Dr Saurabh Kumar Pande, Advocate and Special Public Prosecutor for the Enforcement Directorate in Raipur, there were a total of 11 accused in the scam, out of which two, including IAS Ranu Sahu and Nikhil Chandrakar, have already been arrested in the scam.

State administrative service officer Saumya Chaurasia, a powerful deputy secretary in the chief minister’s office, is already in judicial custody in connection with the coal scam.

That this scam was unfolding right under the nose of the Chhattisgarh chief minister is another glaring indicator of the permissive and complicit character of the Congress Chhattisgarh government.

PSC Scam

Another outrageous scam to hit Chhattisgarh is the PSC scam, which unfortunately caught the attention of the national media only after a nude protest by a group of SC/ST candidates who alleged large-scale rigging of caste certificates by existing government employees for their relatives. The allegations included a compromised selection process full of discrepancies and which lacked transparency. Even data shows the selection of several relatives of government officials giving credence to the allegations.

The primary losers from this scam have been the deserving ST students whose outrage was obvious. It has put a lid on the aspirations of thousands of youth coming from poor families.

Cow Dung and Gothan Scams

The list of scams by the Chhattisgarh government doesn’t end here. They include of all things the Cow Dung scam. Godhan Nyay Yojana, the Congress government’s cow dung procurement scheme in Chhattisgarh, is facing allegations of corruption to a speculated tune of approximately Rs 229 crore. In short, the amount spent by the state government on procuring cow dung in the past three years was disproportionately higher than what had been realised through the sale of dung-based products during the period. Then there is the alleged Gothan scam to the tune of approximately Rs 1300 crore, whereby only a minuscule fraction of the 10,000 Gothans shown to be operational in the state are actually operational. These scams again are a direct attack on the poorest of the poor.

In addition to these, a fraud to the tune of Rs. 43 crore was discovered in the PM Kisan Yojana in Chhattisgarh wherein this money was deposited in the accounts of 53,000 ineligible farmers through an act of fraud. Another big fraud that thrives in both Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand every time a Congress government is in power is the conversion mafia. One is aware of the increase in these activities in the tribal belts of Chhattisgarh yet again.

Given the omnipresence and inherence of loot and cut money in the governance character of the Baghel government, one cannot rule out the discovery of far bigger scams once this government is shunted out. “Mohabbat ki dukaan” is just the code word for everything dystopian.

The writer is the National Spokesperson of BJP. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.