Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat's personal secretary removed due to controversial video

Under fire over a sting video purportedly showing Chief Minister Harish Rawat's personal secretary negotiating a bribery deal with a middleman for liquor licences, Uttarakhand government has removed the official from the post.

The government has removed Mohammad Shahid from his post and stripped him of some of the key departments he was in-charge of including corruption elimination, Suraj and public grievance.

On late Friday night, an order to this effect in public interest was issued, an official release quoting Joint Secretary Personnel Atar Singh said. The move follows a letter written by Mohammad Shahid to the Chief Secretary in which he had requested him to absolve him of these responsibilities pending an ongoing inquiry into the authenticity of the sting CD. The decision is understood to have been taken on the direction of the chief minister so that the neutrality and fairness of the ongoing inquiry into the episode is not doubted.

However, Shahid continues to hold the charges of some other departments such as minority welfare, the release said.

Cornered over the Lalitgate and Vyapam scams, main opposition BJP is out to make the most of the issue with a party delegation meeting governor K K Paul on Saturday to demand ouster of Harish Rawat government over the episode.

Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at a press conference in New Delhi, on Wednesday had accused IAS officer Mohammad Shahid in Uttarakhand of negotiating with a middleman for liquor licences, a scam that she alleged went into crores. She had also demanded Rawat's resignation over it.