Jamshedpur:The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted raids at 32 locations in Jharkhand, including state’s finance minister Rameshwar Oraon's house, in connection with a probe over money laundering in an alleged liquor scam on Wednesday.

The search at the house of Oraon, a former Congress state president who represents Lohardaga constituency, is in connection with alleged involvement of the minister’s realtor son Rohit Oraon with Yogendra Tiwari in liquor business.

Both father and son live in the same house in Ranchi.

Searches were also carried out at the Giridih residence of former Giridih BJP MLA Nirbhaya Shahabadi whose nephew Neeraj Shahabadi is connected with liquor trade.

However, the raids were termed by Congress leaders as an attempt to tarnish the image of the party ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls and were part of the vendetta politics carried out by the BJP-led Centre against non-BJP ruled states.

“BJP knows that its days are numbered till 2024 polls and is acting out of desperation against non-BJP ruled states like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Kerala by misusing federal agencies like ED, IT and CBI. We also had the ED summoning Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren on a day like August 14. It is crystal clear that the BJP wants to damage the image of Opposition parties ahead of the general election and Assembly poll in Jharkhand,” said Jharkhand’s Congress president Rajesh Thakur.

“If the ED would have been serious about probing into money laundering then similar raids should have been carried out in other states as liquor is also sold in Goa, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana (all BJP-ruled states). The good part is that even laymen are now aware of this modus operandi of the central government,” said Thakur.