SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, May 25: The Jharkhand BJP today mounted an offensive against the Hemant Soren government following the Enforcement Directorate’s action against three persons, Vishal Chaudhary, Nishit keshri, and Anil Jha.
BJP state president Deepak Prakash said that the ED action has brought into the spotlight their nexus with top bureaucrats and how they parked their ill-gotten wealth in various ventures over the years.
“These suspected bureaucrats, though not named publicly but everybody knows who they are. They are the trusted bureaucrats of Chief Minister Hemant Soren and hold key positions in his Government,” he said.
Prakash, also a Rajya Sabha MP, maintained that it proved that the Hemant Government is neck-deep in corruption. “So, the Chief Minister should either resign on moral grounds or order a CBI inquiry on his own,” he demanded.
Independent MLA Saryu Roy, said to be a crusader against corruption, also said that the government should take action against the suspected bureaucrats.
“They have been indulging in corruption for a long time. The corruption was centralized when Rajbala Verma was chief secretary. Now, they have gone out of control,” he maintained. “Cronies have no political party, they shift allegiance from one party to another,” he added.
Sources in the State Government, however, said that it can’t take any action on newspaper reports.
“The State Government should have a report to act against any officer. But the ED has not given any report since May 6, except the one which informed about the arrest of Mining Secretary Pooja Singhal,” an official said.
“Suppose, if Pooja Singhal gets bail tomorrow, and comes out of jail, the State Government will have no option but to revoke her suspension since it is in dark over the incriminating materials found against her,” a government official said.
Ironically, the ED has neither issued any press statement nor posted any official information on its Twitter handle since it began its investigation into the rural job scam in Khunti involving Pooja Singhal in Jharkhand. The ED’s Twitter account shows that it posts its actions against anyone found indulging in money laundering.
Notably, the State Government has already raised objections to its continuing probe into shell companies and the mining scam without having any predicate FIR on the grounds of chasing the money trail in the rural job scam. “A predicate offence is a sine qua non for the offence of money laundering,” said a legal expert.
