The Congress said it wanted Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav to "either resign or be dismissed" in the view of charges against him in the Vyapam scam, and questioned the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre's reluctance in removing him from the post.
"The Congress has a clear stand on Yadav who was appointed to his current post while the party was in power. Yadav had an untainted record as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
"However, now that he has been named as an accused in a first information report, he should either resign or be dismissed even if charges against him may not have been proved," party's national spokesperson Rita Bahuguna Joshi told reporters.
The senior Congress leader said the party was baffled over the stance taken by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is in power both in Madhya Pradesh as well as at the Centre.
"The Narendra Modi government took no time in removing Congress-appointed governors like Shiela Dikshit on the flimsiest of grounds. But here we have a governor who was appointed by the previous regime and whose name has cropped up in a serious corruption scandal. And the government seems to be taking no note of this," she said.
"We would like Yadav to resign. But if he is not doing so, who is stopping the Union government. It does not need any complaint from the concerned state government to act on the matter. All that is required is a decision by the Cabinet," Joshi replied to a query.
"The truth is that the BJP's sincerity in unearthing the scam stands exposed. The Supreme Court decision is a clear indictment of the Madhya Pradesh government. And the state is ruled by the same party which is in power at the Centre," she added.
Joshi also said her party suspected that "Vyapam-like scam" may come to the fore in Uttar Pradesh where the public service commission has been drawing flak over irregularities for quiet some time. She also attacked the Samajwadi Party government in the state over the issue of law and order, citing high court orders and incidents like the killing of a journalist in Etawah and death of a scribe's mother who was set afire inside a police station in Barabanki.
Image: Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav
