Patna
A day after the CBI carried out raids at over 12 places owned by RJD chief Lalu Prasad, the ED on Saturday conducted raids at three different properties owned by his daughter Misa Bharti in connection with an over Rs 1,000-crore (Dh568.5 million) benami (proxy) land deals case.
“We have conducted raids at three places including Ghitorani, Sainik Farms and Bijwasan belonging to Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar,” an ED official said.
ED officials refuted that they had questioned Bharti at her residence here.
The ED is investigating a ‘benami’ land deals case allegedly involving family members of Lalu Prasad on the basis of an Income Tax department case.
On Friday, the CBI carried out raids at the residences of Lalu Prasad, his wife Rabri and son Tejashwi Yadav, who is also Bihar Deputy Chief Minister, for allegedly receiving a three-acre plot of land as a pay-off in leasing two railway hotels to a private company when he was the Railways Minister.
Lalu Prasad denied the charges and dubbed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raids a political conspiracy at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government.
On June 21, Income Tax (IT) officials interrogated Bharti for five hours in connection with the benami land case.
Earlier, the department attached over 12 properties of her relatives, including husband Shailesh Kumar, and brothers Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav - both ministers in the Bihar cabinet - under the Benami Transactions Act, 1988.
The IT Department had attached two assets of Lalu Prasad’s kin in Delhi and several properties in Bihar after the department issued a provisional order under the 1988 act, which came into force on November 1, 2016.
Meanwhile, the Congress party headed by Sonia Gandhi today came out in strong support of embattled Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad a day after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted raids at his dozen locations in a corruption case relating to alleged gross irregularities in award of tender for maintenance of railway hotels.
“The entire Congress party stands solidly behind Lalu Prasad at this hour or crisis. The Narendra Modi government at the Centre is trying to bulldoze the secular forces in the country using the CBI,” declared state Congress president Ashok Chaudhary, also the education minister in the Nitish Kumar government.
In a huge morale booster for the RJD chief, scores of Congress leaders — from general workers to ministers in the government — today rushed to the residence of Prasad in Patna and asked him not to worry, saying, “We all are with you”. The leaders included Chaudhary, Madan Mohan Jha, Awadhesh Narayan Singh, all ministers and former assembly speaker Sadanand Singh.
This is the first time the Congress party has supported the RJD chief in this manner although he has faced many such problems previously too.
The development is more significant given the fact that the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had earlier in 2013 torn apart the ordinance brought out by the previous Manmohan Singh government to save the convicted lawmakers from disqualification. The result was that RJD chief Prasad was disqualified from contesting elections after he was convicted in the multi-million dollar fodder scam. He as such was the first leader to face disqualification.
What is further significant is that although the Congress party has backed Prasad, his other ally - the ruling Janata Dal United (JD-U) headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar, has distanced itself from him at this critical time.
The chief minister is said to be recuperating in Rajgir, a historic town in Nalanda, while none of his party members have lent even moral support to the RJD president. Curiously, the ruling Nitish Kumar government has the support of the Congress and the RJD.
- With inputs from IANS
