Mega snub: Shivraj sought 1750 cr for Simhastha, Modi govt gave only 100 cr

Special Correspondent

NewsBits.in

Bhopal: It could be called nothing but a mega snub. The Narendra Modi government sanctioned a petty Rs 100 crore to Madhya Pradesh government for the Simhastha 2016 when chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had sought Rs 1750 crores.

Documents obtained through right to information (RTI) from finance ministry shows that the union government gave only Rs 100 crore though Chouhan repeatedly kept writing to the ministry for more funds.

Chouhan started out by seeking Rs 1750 crore – half of the total estimated cost of Rs 3500 for organizing the mega religious congregation in Ujjain – and came down to Rs 1000 crore as central assistance.

 But the finance ministry sanctioned a mere Rs 100 crore somewhere between January and March 2015 and then decided to keep mum on Chouhan’s repeated beseeching.

“We want to know how did the state government manage to arrange Rs 3400 crore, when the CM clearly writes in one of his letter that the state was facing a crunch and needed central assistance?” activist Ajay Dubey, who got the documents through RTI said while speaking to NewsBits.in.

“We also want to ask why the CM did not protest or demonstrate for the funds like he did during earlier regimes. Why did the CM also not personally request prime minister Narendra Modi for the funds though he met the latter repeatedly in context of Simhastha arrangements?” Dubey further said.

More importantly, the activist said, the state wants to know as to what development or welfare works were impacted or kept pending in the state to arrange for the funds. “As it is the state is reeling under drought conditions people are facing bad times. When they had no funds what was the need to arrange the Vaicharik Mahakumbh at the cost of Rs 45 crore? We don’t see any reference of Vaicharik Mahakumbh as part of Simhastha/Kumbha in the scriptures,” he said.

Dubey also said that the organizer Anil Madhav Dave (Rajya Sabha MP) had promised that the accounts of the Vaicharik Mahakumbh would be made public within a fortnight of the event (12-14 May), but nothing has come to the fore.