Badshah Singh Arrested: The Special Investigation Branch (SIB) of the UP Police co-operative cell on Wednesday arrested former minister Badshah Singh in the multi-crore scam in the UP Labour and Construction Co-operative Federation (LACCFED). Singh, who was labour minister in the Mayawati government, is alleged to have taken Rs5 crore commission as bribe for getting construction contracts for LACCFED. The LACCFED scam is estimated to be of the order of over Rs500 crore.

SIB Inspector SP Singh told reporters that Singh had been arrested after several LACCFED engineers recorded their statements saying that Singh had indeed taken the bribe for awarding contracts to LACCFED but had failed to do so. The engineers told SIB officials that the minister had unleashed his hunting dogs upon them when they had gone to his house to ask for refund of the bribe.

However, the ex-minister has denied all charges. “This is a political conspiracy against me,” he said a tad predictably. He said he never awarded any contracts to LACCFED. A committee headed by a principal secretary-level IAS officer supervised this work, he asserted. “I swear if I am guilty of bungling even a rupee, my entire family may be destroyed,” he added.