By – Shubhendra Singh Rajawat
Tejashwi Prasad Yadav arrived at the ED headquarters in Patna around 11.25am, with a huge number of party supporters yelling slogans against ED and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
After Lalu, son Tejashwi was grilled by ED for about 9 hours in the land-for-job case.
Tejashwi Prasad Yadav arrived at the ED headquarters in Patna around 11.25am, with a huge number of party supporters yelling slogans against ED and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
After Lalu, son Tejashwi was grilled by ED for about 9 hours in the land-for-job case.
The questioning began at 11.30am and lasted at 8.05pm. Tejashwi drove away after leaving the ED office, flashing a victory symbol.
Tejashwi arrived at the ED headquarters around 11.25 a.m., accompanied by a huge number of party members yelling slogans against the ED and the Bharatiya Janata Party. A massive gathering of party leaders, including Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha, Misa Bharti, Tej Pratap Yadav, lawmakers, and others, gathered outside the ED headquarters.
Jha described the inquiry as a simple “political vendetta at election time.”
“It’s not ED. The BJP, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, is targeting individuals who dare to oppose them. If the situation changes after the election, people should be aware that the same can happen again,” he warned.
Prabhunath Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad’s eldest brother-in-law, stated that it was simply a means of harassing the family, since “everyone knows a minister cannot give jobs to anyone with his signature and everything has to be routed through procedures and various levels of officials.”
However, deputy chief minister and BJP state president Samrat Choudhary claimed that Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi were being pursued in an old corruption case. “When he was CM, Laluji gobbled on fodder and got land registered instead of jobs. The ED is examining the corruption case,” he stated.
According to the ED’s probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the family of the then railway minister illegally bought multiple plots of land in important locations in Patna and other areas in exchange for railway jobs. According to an ED official, the current market value of these land units exceeds ₹200 crore.
The property in New Friends Colony, Delhi, registered in the name of M/s A B Exports Private Limited, owned by Tejashwi Prasad and his family, was acquired for a mere ₹4 lakhs, despite its current market value of approximately ₹150 crores, according to PMLA investigation.
The ED investigation suspected that a large sum of cash or gains from crime had been poured into the purchase of this property, and a few Mumbai-based firms operating in the gems and jewellery sector were employed to channel the ill-gotten revenues of crime in this regard. The property has been, on paper, declared as the offices of M/s A B Exports Private Limited and M/s AK Infosystems Pvt ltd, It is being exclusively used as residential premises by Tejashwi Prasad. During the searches, Tejashwi Prasad was discovered to be staying at this residence and utilizing it as his residential property. The ED probe also found that a significant chunk of the funds collected were moved to Tejashwi Prasad’s account.
Last week, the ED filed a Prosecution Complaint (PC) under PMLA against Amit Katyal, Rabri Devi, Misha Bharti, Hema Yadav, Hridyanand Chaudhary, and two firms, M/s A K Infosystems Private Limited and M/s A B Exports Pvt. Ltd., before the special PMLA court in New Delhi in the land-for-job case. The court has taken cognizance and summoned the accused to appear on February 9 for further proceedings.