Now, Maya faces ED heat

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 31

After former Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav, who has been linked with sand mining scam, it was now the turn of BSP supremo Mayawati, as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) today conducted searches at seven places in connection with alleged irregularities of over Rs 111 crore in construction of memorials in the state during her tenure (2007-12).

Taking cognisance of a state vigilance department complaint of 2014, ED officials said the agency has filed a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to investigate these instances. “Raids have been conducted at seven places, including premises of some officials and other private people,” an official said.

The vigilance complaint was filed under various sections of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act and it pertained to alleged financial irregularities in the construction of memorials, including statues of BSP founder Kanshi Ram and the party’s poll symbol “elephant”, during Mayawati’s tenure as the Chief Minister between 2007 and 2012.

In the complaint it was alleged that the said act “resulted in the loss of over Rs 111,44,35,066 to the government exchequer and unlawful gain to public servants and private individuals”. The memorials, statues and parks were built at a cost of over Rs 2,600 crore in Lucknow, Noida and few other places in the state. The UP Lokayukta had earlier indicted Mayawati’s two cabinet colleagues — Naseemuddin Siddiqui and Babu Singh Kushwaha — besides 12 BSP MLAs and several others for alleged “wrongdoings” in the purchase of sandstone for the memorials.

Earlier this month, the agency had raided several locations in a money laundering case registered to probe illegal mining in the state and this case has links to Akhilesh Yadav. Yadav and Mayawati have recently forged an alliance to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

I-T Dept seizes 3 plots of Rabri, daughter

• Former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi and her daughter Hema Yadav on Thursday landed in fresh trouble after the Income Tax Department confiscated their three plots of land in Patna as they had failed to reveal the source of these properties 
• One Lalan Chaudhary had reportedly transferred two plots to Rabri and one Hriday Narayan Chaudhary registered a plot in the name of Hema. Both were domestic helps of former CM Lalu Prasad and believed to have got a govt job