Cong steps up pressure, holds protest outside Education Minister’s house
Thursday, 30/05/2013
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130530/punjab.htm#3
Chandigarh : Led by Congress MLA Jagmohan Singh Kang, a group of 150 Congress workers today held a protest outside Education Minister Sikander Singh Maluka's residence in Kansal village located on Chandigarh's outskirts.
Holding the minister responsible for a series of scams in his department, he threatened that the Congress workers would hold a relay fast if he did not resign within a week. Kang demanded a CBI inquiry into the books scam and the science kits scam.
Elaborate security arrangements had been made at Kansal as well as the Congress Bhavan in Sector 15 in the anticipation that Congress workers would march from the party office to the minister's residence.
Kang said financial irregularities apart, it was shameful that books with objectionable content had been supplied to primary classes.
Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson Sukhpal Singh Khaira, addressing a press conference here today, said the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president, Partap Singh Bajwa, would meet the Human Resources and Development Minister, MM Pallam Raju, and seek a CBI inquiry into the “embezzlement” of central funds allotted to the state under the Sarv Sikhya Abhiyaan (SSA) and the Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyaan (RMSA).
Khaira, addressing a press conference reiterated that the judicial inquiry ordered by the Chief Minister was a mere eyewash aimed at "procuring a clean chit" for the Education Minister.
"The CM is defending his blue-eyed minister while his government has suspended three officers when it was Maluka who bypassed all norms and appointed a committee under the DPI to make purchases,” he said.
Khaira demanded that a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana Court be asked to probe the matter.
