Amid buzz over Navneet Sehgal’s PMO role, Cong points to Newslaundry report

Amid speculation that former Prasar Bharati chairman Navneet Sehgal is going to be appointed to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Congress has asked the government to clear the air while referring to a Newslaundry report. 

Earlier this week, Newslaundry had detailed a confidential income tax investigation report about a system of alleged kickbacks in tenders for various schemes of the Uttar Pradesh government. The department’s report had detailed how at least Rs 112 crore of public money was allegedly siphoned through a web of bureaucrats, contractors, and shell companies.

According to the report, the biggest share of kickbacks allegedly went to Sehgal.

The 1988-batch IAS officer had held several powerful posts during the period under investigation. More than a year after the income tax investigation, he was granted a significant central posting as Prasar Bharati chief in Delhi. A job he recently quit mid-tenure.

At a press conference on Friday afternoon, Congress’s media and publicity department head Pawan Khera said there was speculation that Sehgal was set to replace Hiren Joshi, Joint Secretary/OSD (Comms & IT), in the PMO. 

The party had earlier accused Joshi of corruption. Party MP Priyanka Gandhi had claimed he had a role in an alleged betting app scam. On Friday, Khera said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be swapping one alleged corrupt official with another. “The PMO is full of suspicious people.”

Khera said this is a matter of “national security” and PM Modi must now come clean on the status of Joshi.

Navneet Kumar Sehgal had insisted the matter was closed. Newslaundry had sent a questionnaire to him on December 12 and followed it up. The former bureaucrat insisted all the allegations were baseless. “The matter you mentioned yesterday was enquired into by the I-T department and explanations were called and reply with evidence and legal points were given. The matter was thoroughly examined by the department. The matter has since been finalised, hence the allegations were false and concocted. But you need to see the detailed papers to arrive at any conclusion. I already requested you that any story without my point-wise reply would be defamatory and not proper. I would need to collect papers to show you and explain the correct situation because during discussions you gave many baseless stories also,” he said.