Patna: Former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi, who had thus far ignored seven summons by investigating agencies, finally appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning in the infamous land-for-railway hotel scandal on Saturday. However, the agency’s team had to come to Patna for questioning her.
Devi, wife of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad, had dared the investigating agencies to come to Patna if they wanted to question her, saying they had been trying to harass her by issuing frequent summons and asking the same questions.
“Now I won’t go to Delhi to appear before them no matter how many summons they issue. If they want to question me, they will have to come to Patna itself,” she said at a function in Patna last month.
Eventually, the ED team informed her they were coming to Patna for questioning and asked her to cooperate, reports said. Devi then reached the local office of the ED to present herself for questioning. It’s not known what questions she was asked.
The ED had last summoned the former chief minister on November 24.
The ED is probing irregularities in the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against her son Tejashwi, her husband Prasad, and other family members. On July 27, the ED had registered a case under the PMLA following an FIR by the Central Bureau of Investigation, and is probing the trail of funds transferred through shell companies.
Rabri’s son and former deputy chief minister of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav has already been grilled twice by the ED for his alleged involvement in the case.
The fresh cases of corruption came to haunt the family shortly after the CBI registered a case against them in July and also conducted a raid at their residence in Patna for extending alleged favours to a private party in award of contract for maintenance of railway hotels by the RJD president. The alleged deal had taken place while Prasad served as the federal railway minister in the previous United Progressive Alliance government.
The CBI FIR alleges that Prasad, as railway minister, handed over the maintenance of two IRCTC hotels to a company after receiving a bribe in the form of prime land in Patna through a ‘benami’ company owned by Sarla Gupta.
The FIR was registered on July 5 in connection with favours allegedly extended to Sujata Hotels in awarding a contract for the upkeep of the hotels in Ranchi and Puri and receiving premium land as ‘quid pro quo’.
However, the RJD chief Prasad has accused the Narendra Modi government of adopting double standards in the matter of dealing with corruption.
“The assets of [BJP president] Amit Shah registered 300 per cent growth in the past five years while his son’s property grew by 16,000 per cent in the last three years. Had this been the case with the opposition leaders, the Narendra Modi government would have hurriedly ordered a probe,” asked Prasad.
His party spokesman launched an even more stinging attack on the BJP for the alleged corruption. “The speed with which Amit Shah’s son property grew up is not being maintained by even bullet trains!” mocked RJD spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav.
