RJD boss Lalu Prasad and his son, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, mounted a joint attack on CBI special director Rakesh Asthana over the turf war in the central agency.
Benched CBI director Alok Verma and special director Asthana, who has been “divested of all powers” have accused each other of accepting bribes from businessmen to give them relief from investigation.
Attacking Asthana, a tweet on Lalu’s handle read on Sunday: “Asthana’s (astha) faith towards Modi and his company is more than the Indian Constitution. He is the biggest bhakt. The amount of astha is equal from both sides. It is the situation in which we say ‘you scratch my back and I will scratch your back’.”
Asthana, a Gujarat-cadre IPS officer believed to be close to Prime Minister Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, is supervising several high-profile cases, including graft charges against Lalu and his family, former Union minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti, the Sarada and Narada scams and the AgustaWestland chopper deal.
Rakesh Asthana File picture
As an inspector-general, Asthana had overseen the initial probe into the Godhra train fire that ignited the 2002 Gujarat riots. He was among the 20 bureaucrats from Gujarat who were brought to Delhi within a year of Modi taking charge in May 2014.
Verma, on the other hand, is known as a good administrator who hardly interacts with the media — a trait considered an asset for the politically sensitive post of CBI director.
Later, Tejashwi tweeted: “Big Breaking: Did Rakesh Asthana save Nitish Kumar from 2500 Crore Srijan Scam in lieu of switching from GA to NDA? CBI haven’t arrested main culprits of #SrijanScam yet. CM siphoned off 2500Cr from state treasury to Srijan NGO account.”
It’s been more than a year that an arrest warrant has been issued against the two main Srijan accused — founder Manorama Devi’s son Amit Kumar and his wife Priya Kumar — but they remain at large. Sources associated with the investigation say it is thanks to the couples’ alleged proximity to a top CBI official posted at the headquarters in New Delhi.
RJD MLA Shakti Yadav also said: “He is the same Asthana who along with Nitish Kumar, L.K. Advani and Sushil Kumar Modi made Laluji a conspirator. Then regional director of the animal and fish resources department, late Shyam Bihari Sinha, had accused Nitish of taking bribe but Nitish was not named in the fodder scam case. Asthana is the person who has given clean chit to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in the Godhra carnage.”
JDU chief spokesperson Sanjay Singh said the CBI is not going to give relief to Tejashwi and his family in spite of all the hue and cry, as there was no relief to corrupt in India.
