Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar had promised he would not criticise or give his opinion on the Commonwealth Games (CWG) till it is over, but the former sports minister must surely be relishing the fact that somebody’s already taken his place.
On Monday, Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Dalit leader Mayawati lambasted the Delhi government for diverting Rs744 crore from the Special Component Plan (SCP) to the CWG corpus.
The money was meant for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Mayawati, who had read about it in a media report, said the diversion was “inexplicable”. She has also demanded that these funds should be returned to the SPC corpus and used for the SC/ST.
“This act of the Delhi government indicates its anti-Dalit mentality. There are a large number of SC/ST people living in Delhi, and all of them are very poor. The government could have used these funds for providing health care, education and basic amenities to these people,” she said in a statement.
A recent query by a Right to Information activist revealed that over the past five years, the Delhi government diverted Rs744 crore from SPC to Games projects. This is in violation of Planning Commission guidelines.
Mayawati demanded that the money be used only for the welfare of the Dalits, and urged the Planning Commission to take note of this irregularity.
The allegations have place the Congress on the defensive. “We are all for a thorough inquiry into all allegations of corruption. These should be probed fully and the guilty should be punished,” Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said.
