IPL row: Mayawati wants tainted ministers sacked

LUCKNOW - Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Saturday sought the removal of those union ministers whose complicity in the irregularities related to the Indian Premier League (IPL) has become apparent.

“The union ministers involved in the IPL scam must either step down or should be sacked”, she said in a statement issued here.

She termed the nationwide income-tax searches in connection with the IPL as a farce and an eyewash.

“All such action initiated by the government was just to impress the innocent people of this country that it meant business, when its own prominent people were neck deep into the racket,” she said.

“If the Congress-led central government had been serious about bringing the guilty to book, it would have ensured prompt action by various agencies including the income tax and revenue intelligence authorities, who chose to sleep over the scam going on right under their noses for three years,” Mayawati said.

According to her, “action was deliberately delayed simply because people at the top were aware of the involvement of bigwigs close to the portals of power in New Delhi”.

She favoured setting up a joint parliamentary committee (JPC), with representatives from all political outfits, to probe the IPL affairs. “A JPC would be the most effective and impartial means to unearth the truth,” she said.