NEW DELHI, Feb 1: The joint director of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) Rajeshwar Singh has taken voluntary retirement from the government and is all set to join the BJP and contest the Uttar Pradesh state Assembly elections.
The high profile police officer who had probed important cases like the 2G scam, Sahara case, CWG case, Aircel Maxis deal case, and the INX Media case among others, officially announced that his application for voluntary retirement from the agency has been accepted by the Finance Ministry. And that he intended to join politics to “serve the nation better.”
“Twenty four years of this caravan has come to halt. On this occasion I wish to thank honourable PM @narendramodi, Home Minister @amitshah, Finance Minister @nsiatharaman and SK Mishra, Director of the Enforcement Directorate,” Singh tweeted. He said he would use all that he has learnt in service of people and in protecting the country’s integrity. Singh is trying for a BJP ticket from Suktanpur in UP. In 2014, too, Singh had tried his luck with BJP to get a ticket from Amroha. In a letter attached to the tweet, Singh said since childhood he wanted to walk the path taken by his illustrious father, UP police officer Ran Bahadur Singh, and believed that nationalist politics was the way to serve the nation.
An encounter specialist with UP Police, Singh joined ED in 2007 and was absorbed in the agency in 2014. Singh had also written a scathing letter to then Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, asking him if he “developed animosity against him by siding with scamsters.” The letter was leaked at a time when Supreme Court allowed the government to look into allegations against Singh with regard to a call he had received from Dubai.
Adhia, a retired IAS officer of Gujarat cadre, was known for his close proximity to Narendra Modi when he was the chief minister and took him to Delhi when he became the prime minister.
(Manas Dasgupta)