ED, CBI can set up offices at my home, says Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav
A host of Opposition leaders are under the scanner of the central agencies for alleged money-laundering.
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday said he was ready to let the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation set up offices at his home amid allegations by the Opposition that the Modi government was using the agencies for political vendetta, PTI reported.
“If even this does not bring shanti [peace], I cannot help it,” he said, a day after taking oath in the new Bihar government led by Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar
Tejashwi Yadav added he was not scared of the central agencies even during his first tenure as the deputy chief minister of Bihar from 2015 to 2017. “I used to fight with the Centre for Bihar,” he said. “I have, since, matured, having served as leader of the opposition and steered the party campaign in [the] last assembly elections when my father was not available.”
The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed cases against Tejashwi Yadav, his father and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and his mother Rabri Devi. They were charged after Lalu Prasad Yadav allegedly favoured a company while alloting a tender when he was the railway minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
“ED, CBI, Income Tax, please come and stay as long as you want to,” Tejashwi Yadav said in an interview with NDTV. “Why go away and come after two months to raid us? Just stay, it’s easier.”
Top political leaders such as Congress’s Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut, President of Jammu and Kashmir National Conference Farooq Abdullah, Aam Aadmi Party’s Satyendar Jain, Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee are being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate for alleged money-laundering.
On Wednesday, Janata Dal (United) National President Rajiv Ranjan Singh also said that the party was not scared of the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation.
His comments came a day after Kumar severed ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party for the second time and joined hands with the Rashtriya Janata Dal, whom he had dumped in 2017 on the matter of corruption.