Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 6: A 12-member team of the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) reached the residence in Patna of former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi, the wife of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, on Monday in connection with alleged land-for-job scam.
She was questioned for about four hours by the CBI sleuths who also searched her house even as some RJD leaders and workers sat on a dharna outside her residence while police deployment was strengthened at the gate.
Her son and the incumbent Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav went to the State Assembly to participate in its proceedings. His elder brother and party MLA Tej Pratap Yadav too attended the Assembly session as their mother was being questioned at home.
Yadav brushed off his mother’s questioning by the CBI saying it was nothing new for those who question the BJP. The former Chief Minister was questioned in connection with an alleged land-for-jobs scam when her husband Lalu Yadav held the railway portfolio at the Centre in the UPA government from 2004 to 2009. Lalu Yadav will be questioned tomorrow. “If you fight with the BJP, if you question the BJP, if you show them the mirror, these things will happen. What’s new?” Tejashwi Yadav told reporters when asked the CBI raid.
Earlier the Rouse Avenue Court in Delhi had issued summons to Lalu Prasad, his wife Rabri Devi and their elder daughter Misa Bharti, who is also Rajya Sabha member from RJD. The court had asked them to appear on March 15. The ruling Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) Government leaders outside the State Assembly condemned the CBI team reaching Ms. Devi’s residence.
“Indian Government, especially of BJP, has got frightened and labelling charges against RJD leader Lalu Prasad and his family members without any proof. CBI is a tool at their [BJP Government] hand,” said RJD leader and former Speaker of State Assembly Uday Narayan Choudhary. RJD MLA and spokesperson Shakti Yadav too charged that the “team of CBI has come at the instructions of their godfather. They [BJP] know they will be wiped out in 2024 general election. They [BJP] misusing Central agencies.”
Tejashwi Yadav, however, sidestepped a query on the timing of the action by the CBI — a day after eight opposition parties wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging misuse of the Central investigative agencies.
“Let anyone draw whatever conclusions they will. Ever since this new government was formed, these things happen every month… the people in Bihar are watching it all,” said the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief, who was one of the leaders who signed the letter. “I have said it many times that the CBI should open its office at my residence. It will make it convenient for the agency,” Mr Yadav said.
“Examples of Ajit Pawar in Maharashtra and Mukul Roy in West Bengal bear testimony to the fact that political figures in the country come under attack, or get reprieve, from central agencies based upon their stance against the BJP,” he added. “They will bother us a thousand times, but we will stand,” Rabri Devi told reporters after the questioning.
The case involves allegations that a number of people got jobs in railways after transferring ownership of their land to Mr Yadav’s family members and a company later taken over by the family at throwaway prices. Lalu Yadav, Rabri Devi, their daughters Misa and Hema have been named in the case.
The Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, whose Aam Aadmi Party leaders are also facing raids and questioning by the CBI, has called CBI teams visit to Rabri Devi’s residence as “humiliating.” “This is wrong, raids like these are humiliating.”
He echoed Yadav’s response when asked the same question about the opposition leaders’ latter to Modi. “It can be seen like that also. It is becoming a trend, that wherever there are Opposition governments, they won’t be allowed to function. They (BJP) use ED, CBI and Governor to trouble them. Democracy will go ahead only when everyone will work together, whoever has a government should be allowed to work there.”
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal also reacted to the incident and pointed out the ‘fragile health’ of Lalu Prasad. “CBI heat on Lalu. We all know the fragile state of his health. To pressurise Tejasvi. The more the government does this more the people will turn against this government,” Mr Sibal tweeted.
Incidentally, nine leaders of eight political parties on Sunday wrote to Modi on the arrest of former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in the excise policy case. They alleged that the “misuse” of the central agencies suggests that the country has “transitioned from being a democracy to an autocracy.” The leaders further alleged that the timings of the lodging of cases or arrests of the Opposition leaders “coincided with elections” which makes it clear that the action taken was “politically motivated.”
Among the Opposition leaders who were the signatories of the letter included BRS chief K Chandrashekhar Rao, JKNC chief Farooq Abdullah, AITC chief Mamata Banerjee, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
However, there were no representations from Congress, JDS, JD (U), and CPI (M) in the letter. “We hope you would agree that India is still a democratic country. The blatant misuse of central agencies against the members of the opposition appears to suggest that we have transitioned from being a democracy to an autocracy,” the leaders wrote.
Calling the action against Sisodia, who was arrested on February 26 by the CBI, a “long witch-hunt”, the letter alleged that the allegations levelled in connection with the excise policy are a “smack of a political conspiracy.” They claimed that Sisodia’s arrest has “enraged” people across the country and alleged that his arrest would “confirm what the world was only suspecting” that India’s democratic values were “threatened” under the BJP rule.