The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday rejected the demand for a CBI probe into the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh and maintained that only the high court could order so since the ongoing SIT probe was being monitored by it.
Accusing the Congress of playing "politics over dead bodies", BJP leaders also said that all deaths should not be linked to the scam.
"The matter is already being probed under high court supervision. So, I don't think there is any need for a CBI probe," Madhya Pradesh minister and BJP general secreatry Kailash Vijayvargiya told reporters here.
Vijayavargiya was responding to media queries on the scam after he met BJP president Amit Shah.
BJP vice president and Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh, Prabhat Jha said, "One should understand the technicalities of the matter. The high court is already inquiring into the matter. We can't ignore the high court and ask for a CBI inquiry."
"If the high court itself says that it can't proceed with the investigation, then the government of Madhya Pradesh will decide the next course of action," he maintained.
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Jha also accused the Congress of playing politics over dead bodies.
"The Congress is playing politics over deaths. They should not do so," he said.
BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain advised the Congress to have faith in the judiciary.
"They (Congress) went to the Supreme Court which said that the matter is under the high courts's jurisdiction. Does the Congress consider itself above the SC," he asked.
The Congress does not have faith in the judicial system. The high court is monitoring the investigation, Hussain told media persons.
Another BJP spokesperson, G.V.L. Narsimha Rao, said the death of Arun Sharma - dean of a Madhya Pradesh medical college who was found dead in a hotel room in Delhi on Sunday - was "natural".
"No one should really jump to any conclusion to link the death with Vyapam scam. We consider this death (of Arun Sharma) to be completely natural. It has nothing to do with Vyapam," Rao told the media.
Autopsy on Sharma's body was done at Safdarjung Hospital in the national capital on Monday.
In the past three days, apart from Arun Sharma and TV journalist Akshay Singh, Anamika Kushwaha, a trainee police sub-inspector at the police training centre at Sagar in Madhya Pradesh, have died. She allegedly jumped to her death in a pond early Monday.
There are conflicting claims on the number of deaths related to the Vyapam scam. While the Congress put the number of deaths at 48, the Special Investigation Team pegged the figure at 33.
The scam is related to irregularities in admissions and recruitment conducted by Madhya Pradesh Vyavsayik Pareeksha Mandal (Vyapam) or Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board and apparently involves politicians, officials and businessmen.
The Congress on Monday reiterated its demand for a Supreme Court-monitored CBI probe into the Vyapam scam and asked Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan to resign immediately for "misleading" the scam probe.