In a startling revelation by RTI, MP Chief Minister Kamal Nath was found splurging crores on a business tour to Switzerland. According to an RTI filed in this respect, the MP CM spent approximately Rs. 1.6 crores on his alleged business trip to Switzerland.
Anti Corruption activist Ajay Dubey had filed an RTI in order to know how much the state exchequer spent on Kamal Nath’s visit to the the World Economic Forum meet held at Davos in Switzerland this year. According to the documents accessed, Kamal Nath had paid a visit with Chief Secretary of MP S R Mohanty, Principal Secretary to the CM Ashok Barnwal, and Principal Secretary of the Department of Industrial Policy and Investment Promotion, Mohammad Suleman.
To quote an excerpt from the document, “The dedicated team members of the delegation in collaboration with ‘Invest India’ will closely interact with potential investors, academia, policy makers, etc. to highlight the state as a potential investment destination in central India so as to get them attracted for making investments in various sectors in Madhya Pradesh, the state government had defined as the purpose of the visit. If the visit is not undertaken then Madhya Pradesh may lose opportunities of investment promotion to get investments in the state.”
According to the RTI filed, Rs. 30 lakhs were spent on obtaining the air tickets and visa expenses for Davos, Rs. 45 lakhs were spent for hotel [stay and meeting room], Rs. 9.5 lakh on local conveyance, Rs. 2 lakhs on VIP lounge access at Zurich airport, Rs. 50000 on travel insurance and Rs. 40 lakhs on DIPP lounge access and participation charges.
This is not all. The RTI document further revealed, “Further, it is clarified that a representative of the Confederation of Indian Industry, Madhya Pradesh is also accompanying the delegation and the financial sanction of Rs 1,57,85,000 accorded for the above visit to Davos, also covers the cost of air tickets, accommodation, etc. of the CII representative.”
Now do you remember the tall promise of waiving off the loans of farmers in MP, something which had surprisingly propelled Congress back to power in MP after 15 years? Months after forming the government, Kamal Nath did a joke of waiving off loans, allegedly citing shortage of funds. However, there was no shortage of funds for splurging more than 1.5 crores on a visit to Switzerland. If this is not hypocrisy, what is it?
Moreover, this isn’t the first time that any person associated with Congress has been accused of spending more than what is necessary from the state exchequer. The entire tenure of UPA government stands testimony to the fact that all the Congress cared about was pocketing as much money as they could, right in front of the eyes of their own PM, Dr. Manmohan Singh, who did nothing as they robbed India day and night, be it in the 2G scam, or Coal Scam, or even the infamous CWG scam etc.