Day after uproar, CM downplays CID probe

Shimla: A day after HP crime investigation department’s (CID) action involving samosas and cakes meant for chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s event snowballed into a political controversy, Sukhu cleared on Friday that the investigation was not about samosas, but to ascertain officials’ misbehaviour.
Addressing mediapersons in New Delhi on Friday, the CM said that the investigation was about officials’ misbehaviour, but the media turned the CID inquiry about samosas, adding that the director general (CID) has already clarified the issue. The chief minister also termed BJP leadership’s attack on him on this issue as “childish and laughable,” adding that the saffron party had indulged in smear campaign against the Congress government in the hill state after it won 40 seats in Vidhan Sabha elections. Director General (CID) Sanjeev Ranjan Ojha said earlier in the day that this issue is being “unnecessarily politicised and escalated”.
He added that the department had just asked to find where the ordered eatables for the chief minister’s event on October 21 in the CID office had gone. “We have neither issued notice to anyone nor have called for anyone’s explanation. But this thing has come in the media, become a big issue and is now being politicised,” he added. Ojha appealed to everyone to put an end to the matter now, stating it as CID’s internal matter. “We will check how CID’s internal report has been leaked,” added Ojha.
Ojha explained that on Oct 21, the chief minister had come for the inauguration of CID’s cyber crime wing’s data centre. “After the event was over, officers were having tea and someone asked where some of the ordered eatables were. So we asked to find out as to what happened,” he clarified.