Congress MLA alleges assembly secretariat censored his Vyapam question

BHOPAL: Congress MLA from Madhya Pradesh Ramniwas Rawat on Tuesday alleged that the Vidhan Sabha secretariat had censored a question on Vypam scam that he intended to raise in the assembly during the question hour.
Rawat said his question was about Premchand Prasad, Vyapam scam accused and former personal secretary of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
“I have written to principal secretary of Vidhan Sabha objecting to the censorship. Vidhan Sabha secretariat cannot change the questions without my permission or consent,” said Rawat.
Rawat said one of his questions related to the scam was divided in different parts. He said the relevant lines of his question - “please tell the House the period in which Premchand Prasad was PA to chief minister and what is his present place of posting?” – were deleted in the question booklet distributed in the House on Tuesday.
Prasad was made an accused in the scam last year after his daughter was admitted in a medical college in Bhopal. Prasad has been missing ever since he got bail from a special court in Bhopal last year. “I wanted to know his (Prasad’s) whereabouts through the question, and the government wanted to hide the fact,” Rawat alleged. “This is violation of my constitutional right to information,” he added.
He alleged that another Vyapam-related question was altered by the Vidhan Sabha secretariat. “My original question was, ‘Is it correct that on January 21, 2014, chief minister had stated in the house that from 2007 till date about 1,000 recruitments were forged. If yes then please provide details of these appointments. And inform that what directives were issued to which department.’ But the last two sentences were removed,” he said.
Speaker of MP Assembly Sitasharan Sharma and principal secretary Bhagwan Dev Israni did not respond to TOI’s calls and text messages on Rawat’s allegations.