Vyapam: Mother of all scams

This is certainly stranger than fiction. The magnitude of the multicrore Madhya Pradesh’s Vyapam (professional examination board) scam is something India has never seen before. There have been nearly 2,000 arrests, 47 deaths (and counting) including that of governor Ram Naresh Yadav’s son Shailesh and alleged involvement of country’s top politicians and institutions have made the Vyapam scam the most sinister of all and perhaps a conspiracy worthy of John Le Carre.

The BJP unsteady in its gait, tottering, battered and bruised by the ‘Lalitgate’ scam, wrong education affidavit and ‘Chikki’ scam controversies involving its top Union and state ministers was dealt a debilitating blow as Vyapam scam sank into its gut. With Congress and the entire Opposition lunging for the saffron jugular, what is making it excruciating for the BJP is the deafening silence of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court stepped in to make matters worse for the BJP and Shivraj Singh Chouhan government as it transferred to the CBI the entire investigation into the scam. It is likely that the top court would now monitor the investigation. The Supreme Court has also issued notice to the Governor, Ram Naresh Yadav, an accused in the scam, allegedly protected by the administration.

The apex court also pulled up the Jabalpur High Court, which had initially quashed the FIR against the Governor. With the SC intervention, the exit of the Governor could now be a matter of time. Sources said he’s likely to face the axe after the return of the Prime Minister from Russia. There are also indications that time was running out for Chouhan, who some feel has become a “liability” for the party.

A few months back, the Madhya Pradesh High Court gave a clean chit to Shivraj Chouhan and declared the documents submitted by senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh to establish the MP CM’s link to the Vyapam scam were forged. With Supreme Court’s intervention things are changing fast.

To begin at the beginning the Vyapam scam is an admission and recruitment scam involving top politicians, bureaucrats, students and touts. Vyapam is a government body responsible for conducting examinations for recruitment to government jobs, admissions to educational institute in the state. The scam involved undeserving candidates who bribed politicians and Madhya Pradesh Education Board officials through middlemen to score high ranks in the entrance tests.

From Raj Bhavan the stink has reached the doorsteps of the Mr Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The Congress and the three whistleblowers, Anand Rai, Ashish Chaturvedi and Prashant Pandey have claimed that the involvement of Mr Chouhan and his family members could not be ruled out. The Vyapam examinations had started in 2007 and the scam came to light in 2013. The Congress has been raising this issue since 2013 but after the death of a TV journalist, Akshya Singh on July 4, after which the CM was forced to hold a press conference, that the issue really hit the national headlines. According to reports Akshay was about to “expose some important men involved in the scam.”

On the fateful day Akshay had gone to residence of Om Prakash Damor in Meghnagar in Madhya Pradesh. Akshay was there to interview the family about the mysterious 2012 death of Om Prakash’s sister Namrata, an accused in the Vyapam scam. In an interview to a local daily, Om Prakash narrated the entire event. “Akshay Singh and two other people came to my place at around 12:30pm. Akshay was asking for the complete story of my sister Namrata from my father (Mehtab Singh)....My father showed him my sister’s post-mortem report, and the orders that the high court passed related to MPPEB scam. This interaction took around an hour.” Om Prakash then said: He (Akshya) was sitting on the sofa opposite me. Suddenly he put his right hand on his head and his lips started quivering, saliva started flowing out of his mouth and he fell unconscious.” The scribe was then rushed to Mahavir Hospital in Dahod, cardiologist Dr Shital Shah announced that Singh was “brought dead.” Though the local authorities had initially declared his death as “natural”, samples of his viscera have now been sent to AIIMS and CFSL for examination.

That a sinister plot was on became evident when the case of Om Prakash’s sister, Namrata was reopened. Three years back the state police has declared her death as a case of suicide. Namrata, a student of MGM Medical college was suspected to have cracked her test with the help of an accused in the Vyapam scam in 2010. She went missing on January 7, 2012. A police complaint was lodged by the family on January 12 2012. During that time the police had found an unidentified, mutilated body along the railways tracks in Ujjain on the same day that she had gone missing.

There were posters of her distributed but after no one claimed her body it was cremated after an autopsy. As per reports from the state, her brother saw one of the posters and identified her, after which her body was exhumed. The police reportedly declared this as a case of suicide because of her friendship with a boy. After Akshay Singh’s death, media investigation into the Namrata case revealed that her post mortem report said that she had died because of “violent asphyxia as a result of smothering”, with the findings suggesting homicide.

The Vyapam scam touched sinister proportions as it was found that all those who died had something to do with the scam. Some were accused, some were witnesses. This has given rise to all possible conspiracy theories. The list of the accused in the entire scam is a who’s who in the state. This includes the Governor, Ram Naresh Yadav, former education minister, Laxmikant Sharma, businessmen, mining barons and a host of bureaucrats including top police officials. It has also been alleged by the whistleblowers “kith and kin of judges were also involved in the scam.”

For BJP and the Modi government, which had been promising scam-free governance, a barrage of scams and controversies has dragged it down from the high pedestal. A majority section within the party is of the view that Chou-han’s position has become untenable because there are allegations that his family members including his wife, his brother and his former PS are involved. Reports have suggested that the SIT had found over 100 calls made from CMO to the office of the Vyapam chairman.

So far none of the BJP brass has come out in support of Chouhan, who incidentally was its veteran leader, L.K. Advani’s choice as possible Prime Ministerial candidate for 2014 elections. The scam not merely demolished the image of Chouhan at this juncture but also marked his fall from the RSS’ good books. With the names of RSS senior leaders Suresh Soni and late K S Sudarshan cropped up in the scam the RSS has quickly distanced itself from its erstwhile “blue eyed boy.” Besides, Chouhan, one of the whistleblowers, Ashish Chaturvedi has also claimed that he “was a diehard RSS man”- before the scam broke.

Facing an existential crisis, Mr Chouhan had been reportedly lobbying in Delhi and knocking on the doors of RSS, sources said. So far his moves failed to evoke any response. Even though the RSS seemed to be going soft on Suresh Soni the outfit intends to replace its pracharak and general secretary (organisation) in the BJP state unit, Arvind Menon, who failed to give then the correct picture of the scam.

Though PM’s silence has rattled the party and the nation, the PMO apparently was keeping a close tab on the developments. All eyes are on the July 13 visit of Amit Shah to the state. Speculation is rife that Mr Shah could indicate a change of guard in the state.

If dropped, it could be the end of the road for one of the rising stars in the saffron parivar and a possible threat to the leadership of Narendra Modi. In the event of being replaced, Mr Chouhan could be left to fend on his own without the party coming to aid his aid. The ghost of Vyapam could haunt Chouhan for time to come. As for BJP the skeletons have began tumbling out one after another and at a dizzying pace.