CBI issues notice to Harish Rawat, asks to appear on July 4

DEHRADUN: The CBI issued a notice to former CM of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat in the 2016 sting operation case and asked him to appear in person on July 4.

The team of CBI Delhi visited Rawat's Dehradun residence on Thursday morning. Rawat was not in the house but later contacted the CBI team and assured them of his full co-operation in the matter.

Speaking to TOI, he said, "The damage has already been done in 2016. There was a negative campaign against me and the party. We had to face the consequences. Now it looks like they want to harass me but I will not back away. I will take the right path and one day justice will be done."

The former CM called the sting video a "planned conspiracy". Rawat said, "In future people will talk about how power was misused to target political opponents. It was nice to see that the CBI has turned so active that it came to serve a notice to me on a holiday. I had gone out to wish friends on the occasion of Bakrid and on my return I called the CBI team and assured them to cooperate in their probe."

The sting CD was released in March 26, 2016, and purportedly showed Rawat interacting with private TV channel owner Umesh Kumar, who is now independent MLA from Khanpur, to save his government during a floor test in the state assembly. Earlier on March 18, 2016, nine Congress MLAs had rebelled against the Rawat-led governmen.

This had led to a period of political uncertainty for nearly two months in the state as central rule was imposed.


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