Jaspal sticks to guns

“I have full faith in my officers. They’ll never do anything to tarnish the image of my department”, he added.

On Thursday, Chauhan and edible oil traders allegedly assaulted and threatened a team of civil supplies officials while the latter were raiding the Bhagwati Oil Mill at Vejalpur in Panchmahals district. Later, the officials lodged a criminal complaint with the Gandhinagar police against Chauhan and two traders.

In an apparent bid to tone down the controversy, the government on Sunday ordered a senior IAS official — Dr P K Das, Additional Chief Secretary in the Social Welfare Department — to investigate the entire episode. Das has been asked to probe both the complaints: the one lodged by the oil traders with the Vejalpur police as well as the other lodged by civil supplies officials with the Gandhinagar police.

Openly defending his officials’ actions, Singh today admitted that it was at his instance that they were despatched from Gandhinagar to Vejalpur to check on the oil mill. “There had been complaints that the traders had sold out a huge unaccounted stock of the edible oil that had been sealed by the department recently”, he said.

“The incident should be viewed as serious, since a minister was involved”, Singh said. “It becomes an offence under the Indian Penal Code.”

When asked if the deputy minister had really threatened the raiding team with dire consequences, the civil supplies minister quipped, “Even a gesture can be considered a threat”. The traders were reportedly prompted to hound out the raiding team of civil supplies officials with the arrival of Chauhan at the scene of the incident.

“If Chauhan is innocent, he should start attending his office in the Sachivalaya”, Singh retorted when a reporter drew his attention to the deputy minister’s Sunday statement that he would abstain from the office till the probe was completed “and the truth came out”.

Singh has been resisting the demand of the pro-oil millers’ lobby of Saurashtra — which is allegedly supported by the Chief Minister — that the restrictions imposed on the movement of groundnut and its oil out of Gujarat be lifted. He has been identified with the group upholding the interests of consumers in the State.