Cong attacks govt on transfer of officers involved in audit of Expressway

The Congress on Wednesday accused the government of intimidating Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) officials who had exposed “corruption” in various schemes and demanded that their transfer orders be revoked.

Referring to a media report on the transfer of the officers, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh alleged that the modus operandi of the Modi government was to threaten and remove anyone who “exposed” them.

“We demand that these transfer orders be revoked immediately, the officers return to the CAG and action must be taken on these mega scams related to Dwarka Expressway, Bharatmala and Ayushman Bharat,” he said in an X post.

The Congress leader alleged that “the Modi government is working in a mafia style under the cover of silence and intimidation. If anyone exposes his modus operandi of corruption, he is threatened or removed”.

The latest victims are three CAG officials who exposed “large-scale fraud” in government schemes in a report tabled during the Parliament session, he claimed.

The CAG report showed fraud in infrastructure and welfare schemes. It documented 1,400 percent cost inflation and tender irregularities in the Dwarka Expressway, in addition to diversion of Rs 3,600 crore from highway projects, bidding malpractices and 60 percent cost inflation in the Bharatmala scheme, he alleged.

“Not only this, the audit of the Ayushman Bharat scheme showed thousands of claims made to dead patients and at least 7.5 lakh beneficiaries linked to a single mobile number,” he further said.

Ramesh alleged that the three CAG officers responsible for reporting the Ayushman Bharat and Dwarka Expressway scams were transferred “to hide the blatant corruption in the Modi government despite the fact that the CAG is supposed to be an independent body”.