A day after Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren accused the Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe against him as ‘baseless’ and ‘biased’ and skipped the seventh summons, the federal agency searched the premises of his aides in Jharkhand on Wednesday.
ED officials remained tight-lipped on the searches but sources revealed that the searches were primarily linked to Soren’s media advisor Abhishek Prasad, architect Vinod Kumar, who as per ED sources is close to the chief minister, and Sahibganj deputy commissioner and IAS Ramniwas Yadav.
“The raids are linked to illegal sand mining in Sahibganj and alleged money laundering charges. Searches are being conducted at the official residence of Sahibganj deputy commissioner,” said sources.
ED sources revealed that searches were also conducted at the ancestral house of Ramniwas Yadav at Jaipur in Rajasthan from where cash of Rs 8 lakh was recovered.
Incidentally, the ED had on July 8, 2021, carried out simultaneous operations at 18 locations in Sahibganj district. As a result of this investigation, many people including Soren’s Assembly (Barhait) representative Pankaj Mishra is in custody on charges of illegal mining.
Significantly, on Tuesday Soren had through a special messenger to the ED zonal office in Ranchi delivered a letter.
Sources in the ED had revealed that in the letter Soren has criticised the federal agency terming its probe into the alleged money laundering charges over a land scam in Ranchi and chief minister’s role in it as ‘baseless and biased’.
The letter of the chief minister also accused the ED of engaging in a media trial against him and hinted of taking legal recourse against the summons, indicating that Soren would skip even the seventh summons of the federal agency.
The ED had on Saturday issued its seventh summon to Soren over a probe into alleged money laundering charges in a land scam case. The chief minister was to have given a reply by Sunday about the date, place and timing for deposing before the ED.
Meanwhile, a meeting of the legislators of the ruling alliance partners (JMM-Congress-RJD) began on Wednesday evening at the chief minister’s residence in Ranchi.
JMM sources said the meeting has been convened to discuss the present political scenario in the backdrop of ED’s summons to Soren and to chalk out a strategy.
Legislators of the ruling coalition partners expressed solidarity with the Soren government and said the JMM leader will continue as the state chief minister. Coming out from the meeting, the lawmakers said they stand united and “solidly” behind Soren and there is no threat to the present government, reports PTI.
In another development, Opposition BJP’s state president Babulal Marandi on Wednesday wrote to Jharkhand governor C.P. Radhakrishnan “to save Jharkhand from constitutional crisis amidst the political turmoil manoeuvred at the hands of the present chief minister”.
Incidentally, BJP’s Godda MP Nishikant Dubey had speculated on social media about a possible appointment of Jharkhand chief minister’s wife Kalpana Soren as a stop-gap chief minister.
The BJP MP has alleged that Gandey’s JMM MLA Sarfaraz Ahmad was made to quit so that Kalpana could contest the Gandey seat in case of ED’s action against the chief minister.
A close confidante of Soren had revealed to The Telegraph on Tuesday, that the decision to vacate Gandey Assembly seat has nothing to do with ED action but to flummox the BJP.
“It is yet again a masterstroke by the chief minister in consultation with legal experts to outwit BJP’s plan of letting the Governor open the Election Commission of India opinion (sent in August 2022) in a matter about Soren’s disqualification as MLA for allegedly misusing his position in awarding mining lease in Ranchi.
“The path has been cleared for Soren to contest from Gandey in case his membership is disqualified for Barhait (his present assembly seat),” said the close aide of the
chief minister preferring anonymity.
