PANAJI
The Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Sunday gave a clean chit to his former cabinet colleague PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral into the alleged recruitment scam in the department.
“There is no PWD (recruitment) allegation… Cabral's resignation has nothing to do with any allegation…it is just a party decision…there is no scam,” Sawant told media persons hours after Cabral resigned from the State cabinet.
Sawant said that Cabral is a core member of the BJP party and only core members can be asked to sacrifice for the party. “Cabral has been elected on a BJP ticket since the beginning …he is a core member…and he was asked to resign by the high command and by me and he accepted it,” he said.
A local media had reported an alleged scam in recruitment of 350 engineers in the PWD department. It was alleged that that upset MLAs from the ruling part who complained to the high command with regards to a scam involving lakhs of rupees in exchange of jobs. It was also reported that the High Command has asked the Minister to resign on this ground.
Cabral is likely to take action against the media house over the baseless allegations.
“To build a reputation it takes years and to bring down it takes few minutes…press is a fourth estate of democracy …let them prove the scam and I will resign even as MLA…I stand by what I am saying …my conscience is very clear…I have not done anything that anyone can make allegations about except the opposition,” Cabral said.
