PATNA: The enforcement directorate officials on Tuesday questioned former Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav for around nine hours in connection with the money laundering case linked to an alleged land-for-jobs scam.
RJD Chief Lalu Yadav was also grilled by the ED officials in the Patna office for around ten hours on Monday.
The RJD leaders reacted strongly to the development. Party’s national spokesperson Manoj Jha said, “This is not normal questioning. This is harassment of our leaders. Please go and ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah why this is happening, don’t ask me”.
Amid the investigating agency’s action against Lalu and his son Tejashwi Yadav, key leaders of the RJD camped outside the ED office near Gandhi Maidan in Patna.
Both Lalu and Tejashwi Yadav also skipped Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra rally in Purnea. due to the long hours of questioning by the ED officials.
“This is not an ED office but the extended office of the BJP. They only grill opposition leaders who dare to question the BJP. If they don’t change their ways we will show them how to change things”, RJD spokesperson Manoj Jha told reporters while camping outside the ED Patna office.
Other senior RJD leaders who protested against the grilling of Lalu Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav said that the action was indicative of political vendetta. The leaders said that the party feels that the BJP is systematically targeting opposition parties through the central agencies.
The party leaders also said that Nitish Kumar’s recent defection was intricately connected to the BJP’s alleged strategy to target Lalu Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav.
According to RJD insiders, “the timing is crucial, with Nitish Kumar’s departure from the alliance coinciding with the summon notices by the ED to Lalu Yadav and family. It seems that all these developments are preplanned”.
The RJD leaders believe that the sequence of events is indicative of a deliberate plan aimed at destabilizing Tejashwi Yadav who was working for the development of the state and giving jobs to youth in Bihar as a Deputy CM.
“Within seventeen months Tejashwi Yadav gave jobs to the youth and changed the face of the health and tourism sectors. Everyone knows that all this action is preplanned”, RJD leaders said.
RJD leaders emphasized the party’s full cooperation with the investigating agencies, expressing confidence in the judicial process. They said that “the people of the country are observing everything and will show their power when the time comes”.
