“Current Market Value…”: Postscript from Probe Agency after raids on Yadavs

New Delhi:

The current market value of land allegedly acquired in exchange for jobs by Lalu Yadav’s family when he was the Minister of Railways is around Rs 200 crore, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said in a statement today.

The central bureau also provided a long list of other assets that Mr. Yadav’s family allegedly acquired in the case that came to be known as Bihar land-for-jobs scam.

“PMLA investigation conducted so far has revealed that several pieces of land in prominent locations in Patna and other areas have been illegally acquired by the family of the then Rail Mantri Lalu Prasad Yadav in lieu of railway jobs,” said the ED in a statement today, referring to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

“The current market value of these land plots is more than Rs 200 crore. In this regard, several benamidars, empty entities and ultimate owners of these lands have been identified,” the ED said.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has also subpoenaed Mr Yadav’s son and Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav for questioning in the land-for-jobs scam.

The ED said searches at 24 locations in Delhi-National Capital Region, Patna, Mumbai and Ranchi led to the recovery of unaccounted Rs 1 crore cash, foreign currency of $1,900, 540 grams of gold bars, more than 1.5 kg of gold jewelery worth Rs 1.25 crore and property documents in the names of Mr. Yadav’s relatives.

The ED alleged that four plots of land acquired by Mr Yadav’s family for just Rs 7.5 lakh from poor Group-D applicants had been sold to former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLA Syed Abu Dojana by the wife from Mr Yadav, Rabri Devi, for Rs 3.5 crore in a “collusion”. agreement”.

It alleged that a large portion of the amount was deposited into Tejashwi Yadav’s account.
“…During the investigation that in many railway districts more than 50 percent of the recruited candidates were from the constituencies of Lalu Yadav families. Further investigations in this regard are ongoing,” the ED said in the statement.

Mr. Yadav and the leaders of his RJD and even their ally and Prime Minister Nitish Kumar have rejected all allegations made by the ED as politically motivated.

“After five years, action is suddenly taken. Why didn’t they continue the case then?” Mr Kumar told reporters today. He claimed that the ED is targeting the RJD after his Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), joined hands with Mr Yadav’s party to form a government in Bihar. The JD(U) and BJP previously ruled Bihar in an alliance.

Tejashwi Yadav’s house in Delhi was searched by the CBI yesterday. The ED also searched properties related to his sister Ragini Yadav and others.

Sources close to Tejashwi Yadav criticized the timing of the move, saying they never expected this kind of vendetta policy from the BJP when his wife is expecting a child. His sister said her family was only “tortured” because her family never bowed to “fascists and rioters”.

“We will remember this injustice. Everything will be remembered. What crime did the sister’s little children commit? What crime did the pregnant sister-in-law commit? Why is everyone being tortured? Everyone is being tortured since this morning. The only crime of these people is that the Lalu-Rabri family does not bow to fascists and rioters. You will get the answer to this injustice when the time comes. All this is now intolerable,” she tweeted in Hindi yesterday.

Last week, eight opposition parties wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi claiming they took advantage of central investigative agencies to go after them amid the political war over the arrest of Manish Sisodia, leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

“Since 2014, there has been a marked increase in the number of raids conducted, cases filed against and arrests of the opposition leaders. Be it Lalu Prasad Yadav (Rashtriya Janata Dal), Sanjay Raut (Shiv Sena), Azam Khan (Samajwadi Party) , Nawab Malik, Anil Deshmukh (NCP), Abhishek Banerjee (TMC), Central agencies have often aroused suspicion that they were operating as extended wings of the ruling dispensation at the centre.The arrests coincided with elections, making it abundantly clear that they were politically motivated,” the opposition leaders said in the letter.