Chandigarh, June 21 (IANS) The Punjab vigilance arrested Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Sanjay Popli and his secretary on corruption charges.
As per the FIR, Popli allegedly sought one per cent commission from a contractor of a Rs 7 crore sewerage project in the Nawanshahr town during the previous Congress regime.
The contractor paid Rs 3.5 lakh through Sanjeev Vats, a Superintendent-level official posted as secretary to the officer, who was heading the Water Supply and Sewerage Board, on January 12.
The officials said Popli was seeking the remaining Rs 3.5 lakh from the contractor, who recorded his phone calls and complained on the anti-corruption helpline set up by the present Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government.
The officer was arrested from his house in Chandigarh on Monday evening.
The BJP, which had been politically attacking Amarinder Singh in the last several years, has launched blistering attacks against Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu and the Congress high command (Gandhi family) with the help of Amarinder Singh's recent comments against Sidhu and the Congress.
Rahul Gandhi met Channi along with the party's Punjab in-charge Harish Rawat and General Secretary K.C. Venugopal late on Thursday. Before that, Rahul held a separate meeting with Rawat.
According to orders, he would also be the Principal Secretary, Personnel and Vigilance, besides Financial Commissioner, Development, and Principal Secretary, Food Processing, Horticulture and Governance Reforms and Public Grievances.
Senior SAD leaders Prem Singh Chandumajra, Maheshinder Grewal and Daljit Cheema on Tuesday said it was most unfortunate that even after admitting that some wrong elements wanted to defame the 'kisan sangharsh', Rajewal had neither secured an unconditional apology from those guilty of hooliganism nor subjected them to the process of law.
The Prime minister further said that the visit would be an occasion to consolidate relations with our strategic partners - Japan and Australia - and to take forward our collaboration on important global issues. In a departure statement, the Prime Minister said he will be visiting the US from September 22-25 at the invitation of President Joe Biden.
The Director-General of WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that it is an important development in support of reaching the 40 per cent vaccination target in all countries by the end of this year.
