Allegations of UG news motivated, says Nipamacha

IMPHAL, April 26: The former Chief Minister, Wahengbam Nipamacha Singh, has strongly denied that he has ever paid any money to any underground outfit in Manipur. The former Chief Minister was reacting to reports in a section of the media that the Union defence minister Jaswant Singh had told Parliament that the Army has recovered a counterfoil indicating that he had paid a sum of Rs 1 lakh to an underground group. Issuing a statement in this connection, the former Chief Minister said the counterfoil said to have been recovered by the Army may have been fabricated by vested interests with the objective of vilifying him. Maintaining that the recovery of the counterfoil was not enough to adduce his guilt, he pointed out that no receipt for the alleged payment has been recovered from his custody. Nipamacha further asserted that he has had no contact of any kind with the members of any underground group. He came to know late PLA leader Bisheshwor Singh only after the latter became an MLA, he stated. Regarding the charge that some of the ministers in his erstwhile ministry had connections with underground group, he said he had told the Union home minister Advani that his government would investigate, and also urged the Centre to conduct an investigation of its own. He said he had also made it clear that he had no objection to such an investigation against him. According to Nipamacha, the Union minister had recently revealed to some MSCP MLAs who went to meet him that the charges had been levelled by T Chaoba. The former Chief Minister, reiterating that the charges, against him were false and baseless, said he stood for the unity and integrity of the nation as much as the Central leaders did. Interestingly, though this was the first statement issued by Nipamacha after allegations of forgery of the signatures of some MLAs was levelled against him and his group, the former Chief Minister did not make any mention of these charges.