M'rashtra: Congress wants probe on 'last-minute' decisions

Shortly after the October 21 Assembly elections were announced, the Maharashtra Congress has demanded a probe by the state Lokayukta into all the "last-minute" decisions taken by the outgoing BJP-Shiv Sena government in the past one week, here on Saturday.

"In a letter to the Lokayukta, we have said there could be large-scale corruption, as reported, in the government's decisions taken in the final last week in its tenure. These must be thoroughly investigated," Congress general secretary-cum-spokesperson Sachin Sawant said.

He said in anticipation of the Model Code of Conduct, many of the decisions of the government that were rushed through are intended to benefit only a few people or the party activists or those connected to the ministers.

"Many of the decisions have been taken hastily and at the last minute to extract maximum financial benefits. The state government's website has crashed as attempts are being made by the ministers' staffers to back-date many such decisions. This needs a separate probe," Sawant alleged.

The Congress has also urged that from the minute the MCC went into effect this afternoon, no government decisions should be uploaded on the government's website and all such decisions, if taken, must be scrapped.

The Maharashtra government has been virtually on an overdrive in the past few weeks, as it announced a series of measures and decisions with an eye on the polls.

The Election Commission (EC) has announced a single-phase election in Maharashtra for October 21 and the counting will be on October 24 with the results expected the same day.

The new government is expected to be in office before the current Assembly tenure expires on November 9.

( With inputs from IANS )