Paswan demands CBI probe into excise scam

PATNA: LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan here on Tuesday demanded a CBI probe into the alleged Rs 500 crore excise scam. Paswan accused chief minister Nitish Kumar of covering up the alleged scam by removing the then excise minister Jamshed Ashraf instead of ordering an inquiry into the scam.
He said this while addressing a state-level convention of the LJP youth wing at the open theatre of the Bharatiya Nritya Kala Mandir.He also came down heavily on the NDA government for siphoning off funds under various social welfare schemes such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) and Indira Awas Yojana (IAY).
Inspite of the provision of 100 days of work in a given year under the NREGA scheme, people are not given work for more than 30 days, he said. Similarly, the Union government has made a provision of Rs 90,000 crore under the IAY scheme of which Rs 57,800 crore had already been provided to the state government, but yet the present government had failed in its duty to provide dwellings to the BPL families under the said scheme, said Paswan.
He also accused Nitish of dividing the `Mahadalits’ by excluding the Paswan caste from its ambit. He announced that if LJP-RJD combine comes to power in the next assembly election, each family of all the 22 castes that comes under the `Mahadalit’ umbrella would be given one bigha of land free.