December 16, 2015
Sudip Bandyopadhyay speaks in Lok Sabha on the CBI raid at Delhi CMO
In a federal structure in a democracy how can the office of a Chief Minister be raided by the CBI? Why would the Chief Minister be kept in dark about a raid on the Principal Secretary? What we are saying, Madam is that like Narendra Modi ji, the State governments and Chief Ministers are also elected by public mandate. So each State Government is in their position with public support and according to the constitutional system and procedure. It gives us much pain when we hear that a Chief Minister’s office is being raided, his Principal Secretary is being taken up without intimating the Chief Minister.
Regarding the raiding of files, the Delhi Government is saying that all those files are cricket-oriented files; they are Delhi Cricket Association files. Let it be investigated; let there be a Joint Parliamentary Committee if necessary, that they should investigate all such issues.
Madam, these issues should be discussed on the floor of the House in detail. Once CBI was called ‘Congress Bureau of Investigation’. Now it has become GBI – ‘Gujarat Bureau of Investigation.’ The Joint Director of CBI, Additional Director of CBI, may kindly be investigated, whether they have been very recently been appointed from the Gujarat cadre of IPS or not. And whether there is any official with the same title as Mr Modi.
So this signifies how the CBI is being misused. Venkiah-ji, you told yesterday how the Prime Minister cannot be condemned because the CBI is an independent body. No, CBI is answerable to the PM. So, they cannot do anything without his knowledge. The CBI’s raid on the offices of a democratically-elected CM is a blot on the federal structure of our democracy.
