Digvijaya Singh Clarifies: 'I Had No Dispute with Madhavrao Scindia'

Veteran Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Monday said he had no dispute with Jyotiraditya's father and former Union Minister Madhavrao Scindia.

A tug of war between former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, that erupted following black money recovery from ex-RTO constable Saurabh Sharma, continued with a fresh remark on Monday.

Veteran Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Monday said he had no dispute with Jyotiraditya's father and former Union Minister Madhavrao Scindia.

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Digvijaya said he and former CM Arjun Singh had brought Madhavrao Scindia into Congress.

"It was me and Arjun Singh who took Madhavrao Scindia to Indira Gandhi (ex-PM) and Sanjay Gandhi in 1979-1980, and then he joined the Congress. There was no dispute between him and Madhavrao Scindia," Singh said, adding that those who talk unnecessarily should know about the history.

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The Congress leader made this statement responding to Jyotiraditya's allegation that Digvijaya has always targeted the Scindia family. "He (Digvijaya Singh) has always targeted my family. Earlier, he targeted my father, and now at me. But I have always great regard for Raja Sahab," Scindia had said during a visit to Gwalior recently.

The Union minister was responding to Digvijaya's allegation that during Kamal Nath-led Congress government, Scindia (who was then in Congress) had recommended allocating the transport ministry to his loyalist Govind Singh Rajput, who at present is minister in Chief Minister Mohan Yadav's cabinet.

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He had also accused him of compelling Shivraj Singh Chouhan's government to discontinue the transfer board of the transport department. However, Scindia has termed the allegations made against him by Singh as 'baseless'.

The controversy began after black money linked to former transport department constable Saurabh Sharma was caught in the abandoned car by Lokayukta.

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Additionally, he accused Saurabh Sharma, one who was caught with huge amounts of cash and gold, of having protection from a transport minister and was part of a money laundering operation that had penetrated right to the top tiers of the department.

He also said that this scam involved illegal collections made at check posts and transfers handled by officials with ties to Scindia.

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Notably, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax Department and the Special Establishment Police (SEP) of state Lokayukt carried out separate searches at several premiers of Sharma and his associates in multiple locations, including Bhopal and Gwalior.

The first recovery in the case happened during a Lokayukta raid last week when anti-corruption officials found that Sharma had movable assets of Rs 7.98 crore, which included cash Rs 2.87 crore in addition to 235 kilograms of silver.

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Documents showing real estate investment and also a cash-counting machine were recovered from properties linked to Sharma.

Subsequently, the Income Tax Department again conducted a raid and discovered 52 kilograms of gold bars valued at Rs 40 crore and above Rs 11 crore in cash from an abandoned SUV in Bhopal. But no arrest has been made yet by the agencies about Sharma.

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