Dehradun: The special investigation team probing the Rs 300-crore NH-74 scam concerning irregularities in the widening of the road at Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand questioned former state Congress chief Kishore Upadhyay over a party bank account opened just before the 2017 assembly elections in which some "beneficiaries of the NH-74 scam" had allegedly deposited money.While the Congress termed it "political vendetta", the BJP was quick to say no one should be worried if no wrong had been committed.Upadhyay told TOI on Thursday that the allegations were “baseless” and that it was "political vendetta to tarnish my image ahead of the urban local body polls”. He added, “All transactions in the party's accounts are through cheques. The SIT can easily get details of the transactions and if they have further queries they should contact the present state chief of the Congress."Meanwhile, state BJP chief Ajay Bhatt said that the SIT is "functioning without any pressure" and there was no question of targeting anybody. “If crores have been deposited in the Congress account by people who are implicated in the scam, SIT has the right to check the money trail and question whoever is involved,” Bhatt said.The scam has pitted the BJP and the Congress against each other ever since it broke out. Interestingly, on the BJP government’s recommendation, the CBI had agreed to investigate the matter but the central investigation agency is yet to start its probe.The SIT team met Upadhyay on Wednesday and questioned him on the party’s State Bank of India account, which was opened in January 2017. It has been alleged that beneficiaries of the scam had deposited money in this account in the form of donations to the party.Upadhyay told TOI that on the directive of the Election Commission, a separate account was opened for election expenditure. “As I did not operate the account I am not aware of the people who deposited the money and the total amount deposited,” the former state Congress chief said.He added that the SIT and CBI can easily get details of the transactions from the bank. “The bank account was operated by state secretary Surendra Rangad and Kamal Rawat, who was the officer on special duty (OSD) to the then chief minister Harish Rawat. It would be right if the probe agencies spoke to Pritam Singh, the present state Congress chief,” Upadhyay said.Bhatt said, “Landowners had deposited kickbacks running into crores in the Congress party’s bank account after getting compensation. I had raised the issue of the bank account one year ago and now the same thing is coming out in the SIT investigation. More names of Congress leaders who were associated with the bank account will surface in the coming days.”

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