BJP MLA Jagat Singh has been caught on video assuring a group of people that they can continue illegal mining without any fear.
The MLA from Kaman in Bharatpur district, which is notorious for illegal mining, was said to have been addressing a group of miners or transporters.
After attending the panchayat samiti meeting, Jagat Singh, the son of former foreign minister Natwar Singh, who himself was forced to resign from the Union Cabinet during the UPA rule after his name came up in the Volcker report a decade ago, attended a separate meeting of a few people in which he was caught telling them that they can do what they have been doing. “I don’t understand legal or illegal, but you guys continue doing your work. I have spoken to higher authorities in the government,” he allegedly told them.
“Neither RTO nor mines engineer and SDO will come, I have explained to the chief minister ‘saahiba’ that this is how we earn our daily bread and butter. We have no choice. She has assured me that she will not look this side,” Jagat Singh is heard saying in the video. “There have been no proceedings for the past 10 days. Do not worry about action. I am there to protect you,” he went on to say.
While accepting that police action against vehicles deployed in mining came for discussion in the general meeting of the panchayat samiti, block development officer of Pahadi K.K. Jaiman denied that Jagat had said anything in the meeting, although panchayat member Ramkishan said that the MLA had said this during his address in the meeting.
After the meeting people are said to have opposed the MLA and even waived black flags at him. Bharatpur is notorious for illegal mining.
Congress vice-president and media chairperson Archana Sharma said, “The BJP MLA is openly supporting and abetting illegal mining and overloading. He has said that the CM is supporting illegal mining, which confirms her involvement in illegal mining, so investigation in the multi-crore mining scam being probed by the ACB should focus on the CM’s role too.”
