Indian minister charged with embezzling

NEW DELHI, May 17 (UPI) -- A senior member of India's cabinet was charged Tuesday with siphoning $600,000 of state funds to buy animal fodder in the 1990s.

Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav is accused of embezzling the funds when he was chief minister of the state of Bihar. Yadav immediately publicly denied the allegations.

Another court last month accused him of diverting $8.5 million during the same time period, which he also denied.

India's Central Bureau of Investigation is investigating about 60 cases of alleged graft after auditors began finding irregularities in 1996, and Yadav figures in seven of them, the BBC reported.

Opposition calls last month for Yadav's resignation as the scandal widens were ignored by the coalition government, whose members said he will only resign if found guilty.