VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Dec. 16: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has sent summons to Jharkhand Congress MLA Jaimangal Singh alias Anoop Singh in the MLA cash recovery case. He has been asked to appear before the Ranchi zonal office of the agency on December 24. He has been summoned in his capacity as the complainant of the case.
Three Congress MLAs namely Irfan Ansari, Rajesh Kacchap and Naman Bixel Kongari were arrested by the Bengal police and a cash worth Rs 48 lakh were recovered from their possession. However, they accepted the cash belonging to them. But they insisted that it was their legitimate money which they were carrying to purchase ‘saris’ for distribution among people. They were detained on July 30, only a day before when Jharkhand High Court advocate Rajiv Kumar was trapped and arrested for allegedly accepting Rs 50 lakh from Amit Agrawal to manage a PIL.
But Jaimangal Singh who is the MLA from Bermo assembly seat lodged a zero FIR at the Argora police station a day after the arrest. He claimed that these MLAs were part of the BJP’s gameplan to topple the Hemant Soren led JMM-Congress-RJD government. Jaimangal Singh claimed that these MLAs had approached him with with Rs 10 Crore gratification to topple Hemant Soren. He claimed BJP’s Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was controlling the ‘operation lotus’.
He claimed that these MLAs wanted to take him to Guwahati to arrange his meeting with Himanta Biswa Sarma. Jaimangal Singh said that the MLAs told him that Himanta Biswa Sarma would give him assurance of a definite ministerial berth apart from the money. Jaimangal Singh said that he refused the proposal to topple the present government.
“I do not want to be part of this unconstitutional, illegal and downright criminal activity and hence informing you that you please take action against them who are stationed in Kolkata with token amount and pressuring me to come to Kolkata and accompany them to Guwahati,” Jaimangal Singh claimed in the FIR.
These MLAs were questioned in the police remand by the Bengal police. They later on got interim bail. The Congress dubbed it as a nefarious design of the BJP to topple the government and Jaimangal Singh came forward and claimed that he too was offered money. In the FIR, Jaimangal Singh has made such an impression that the Assam Chief minister was heading the alleged operation lotus to topple the government in Jharkhand.
Later on, the ED also took up this case for investigation and decided to summon him. The investigation of this case by Bengal police witnessed a series of showdown of Bengal police vis a vis Delhi police and the Assam police.
Notably, in this case Bengal police had sought assistance from the special branch of Jharkhand police.
