Nirani had documents on Covid-19 irregularities, claims Siddaramaiah

In what could prove to be a major embarrassment for BS Yediyurappa government, Congress leader tweeted proceedings of the Public Accounts Committee, claiming that former minister Murugesh Nirani had possessed documents alleging irregularities in procurement of Covid-19 equipment.

While Nirani has subsequently denied submitting any documents to the Public Accounts Committee, the tweet came at a time when the opposition is locked in a pitched battle over corruption charges regarding the issue.

Siddaramaiah shared minutes of the meeting of a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting, which said that Nirani told PAC that an official traveling with him had brought 125 pages of documents in his pen drive. The documents highlighted gross irregularities in procurement of PPE kits, sanitisers and other equipment. “The documents in the pen drive could not be downloaded. Or else I would have submitted the papers to the committee,” Nirani is quoted as saying.

“Your ex-minister Murugesh Nirani seems to have all the evidence to prove that yours is #100PercentCorruptSarkar. Collect it from him,” Siddaramaiah tweeted. The tweet was among the several in which he attacked the government over delay in furnishing information sought by him from the government regarding Covid-19 procurement.

Murugesh Nirani, responding to queries, said that he had not submitted any pen drive which had documents pertaining to irregularities in Covid-19 procurement. “Reports regarding the same are baseless,” he said.

Ravi Krishna Reddy, president of Karnataka Rashtra Samithi, who shared the same document, sought to know why Nirani was denying the statements which were officially recorded in the PAC proceedings. Backtracking by the former minister indicates that there is conflict of interest, corruption and destruction of evidence among other violations in the case,
he said.