A day after Home Minister Amit Shah slammed Congress and raised concerns about Opposition parties’ muted response on over Rs 350 crores recovery from Congress MP Dhiraj Sahu, BJP Parliamentarians led by party chief J P Nadda on Monday held a protest in the Parliament Complex. Earlier Prime Minister Narendra Modi too had questioned the ulterior motive of the Congress and Opposition on recovery of the huge amount.
Holding placards, BJP MPs alleged the cash seized by the income tax department during raids on a distillery company linked to Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand proved that the opposition party was “neck-deep” in corruption.
However Opposition parties including Congress, Shiv Sena (Uddhav) came out in defence of Sahu saying the person against whom corruption charges are made get cleaned when the pass through ‘Modi washing machine’. Congress in seeking clarification from the MP in question of IT raids said that the matter is related to Sahu’s business of more than four decades and whether the finance recovered are illegal will be known after investigations. Party MP Manickam Tagore said the matter is not that of party but an individual case and should be looked through that prism.
BJP members in Lok Sabha also raked up the issue of cash seizure in the House on Monday. Sanjay Seth, the BJP member from Ranchi, raised the issue during the Zero Hour, seeking a reply from the Congress. “I am very surprised. After independence, such a large amount of cash has been seized from an MP’s house. Crores of rupees have been recovered but the whole INDI alliance is silent on this corruption. I understand Congress is silent as corruption is in their nature but JDU, RJD, DMK, and SP all are sitting silently. Now I understand why a campaign was run against PM Modi that agencies are being misused. It was run because there was a fear in their mind that all the secrets of their corruption would be revealed,” the Home Minister had stated prompting the party members to take the protest ahead.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg... Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will have to answer whose money it is and how it was looted,” Nadda said after Rs 351 crore were seized by income tax sleuths during searches against Boudh Distillery Private Limited, owned by the family of Congres MP Dhiraj Prasad Sahu.
Holding placards near Mahatma Gandhi’s statue, the protesting MPs also demanded Sahu’s arrest. The cash seizure is the “highest-ever” haul in a single action by any probe agency in the country, official sources had said on Sunday.
Several other BJP MPs sitting next to him displayed newspapers with reports of the recovery of cash to drive home their point. Rajendra Agrawal, who was chairing the proceedings, urged members not to name the Rajya Sabha member and asked them to put down the newspapers.
Opposition INDIA bloc Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said if a leader of the INDIA alliance is found with Rs 200 crore, then the black money with the BJP would be Rs one lakh crore, “The BJP is shouting from the rooftops about the Dhiraj Sahu case but are not commenting on the Rs 400 crore issue regarding Praful Patel (of the Ajit Pawar faction of NCP). I will write to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on this,” Raut told the media.
Another party MP Priyanka Chaturvedi asserted that the opposition should not be blamed for Congress MP Dhiraj Sahu’s business interests. “BJP always finds a chance to accuse; it is wrong to say that they (opposition party) are standing with him.
