Cong’s Jogi headache worsens

Sources said what makes this more serious is the fact that signals have come from top levels of the Government to the effect that Jogi is heading for trouble.

If he is chargesheeted, the party will find it difficult to defend his staying on as the Chief Minister, a scenario that’s a nightmare for the Congress as it prepares for polls in the state.

When contacted in Bastar, Jogi told The Indian Express: ‘‘There is no question of my stepping down.’’ Asked what he would do if he was charge-sheeted, he said: ‘‘They do all kinds of fake things, why should we succumb to them? They are spreading a canard. It’s (getting him to quit) not so easy. The Governor and the Attorney General have to be taken into confidence, and the PM has to be involved.’’

Jogi may put up a brave face but there’s disquiet in the party. To change the horse midstream and that too less than two months before the elections is not easy. As it is, the battle in Chhatisgarh had become a Jogi versus the rest affair, and not so much a Congress versus BJP fight. Also, what happens in Chhatisgarh will also have a ripple effect in Madhya Pradesh.

There are already two cases against Jogi going on in the Shahdol and the Bilaspur courts. Both challenge his tribal status, the charge being that he used a fake Scheduled Tribe certificate to contest elections.

What may, however, turn out to be more damaging is the chargesheet by the CBI expected in early October. The agency had filed an FIR in the case of forgery of the IB document but Jogi claimed today that this was against ‘‘unknown persons’’ and not against him.

Jogi had in a way invited this trouble when he had written to the Prime Minister in March this year alleging that the Home Ministry had launched an operation codenamed ‘‘Black Sea’’ to malign him. He had released to the press copies of what he had called a ‘‘top secret/confidential’’ document supposedly by the IB, though the IB denied it.

That document listed cases that the IB was supposed to be investigating against him—of money he had allegedly stashed away in a Swiss bank, his three ‘kothis’ in Delhi, and other properties he had allegedly acquired in Mumbai and Dehradun.

The Prime Minister had asked the CBI to investigate, the Income Tax department was also roped in to look into charges of Jogi’s disproportionate wealth. The IT department even carried out raids in connection with the case.

‘‘I am not a demented person to forge a letter against myself,’’ Jogi said about the CBI case.

Besides the CBI case, there is the matter pending in the Shahdol court. The court recently ordered that cases under several Sections, including Section 420, be registered against Jogi for allegedly using a fake scheduled tribe certificate.

The police have not yet registered an FIR against the chief minister but are required to do so before the next hearing which is listed for October 18.

His opponents managed only yesterday to secure a caveat from the court against any stay that he may seek. He will also have to list all the cases that are pending against him when he files his nomination papers.

The central charge in the Shahdol court is that Jogi used a ST certificate which was issued in 1967 from Pendra tehsil of Bilaspur district. When the Shahdol Chief Judicial Magistrate found that there was nothing like a Pendra tehsil in 1967 and that it came into existence only in 1981, he ordered that a case of forgery be registered against him. Now, Jogi will first have to prove that the 1967 certificate is genuine.

On this, Jogi said that this matter had already been settled by the High Court in Jabalpur “four times” and the Shahdol court would be informed about this. There was a Naib tehsildar in Pendra from the fifties, he said.

In Bilaspur, Jogi had challenged the verdict of the SC-ST commission that he is a non-tribal, and managed to get a stay.