PATNA: Even as Bihar’s ruling NDA is busy painting the main Opposition party RJD as an unparalleled symbol of corruption, a senior RJD leader on Wednesday said CM Nitish Kumar of JD(U) and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi of BJP would be jailed for scams when NDA loses power in the state.
“These people (NDA leaders) are crying from rooftops that (jailed RJD chief) Lalu Prasad Yadav is the most corrupt politician. They are also painting his family with the same brush. But they are silent on the many scams perpetrated during NDA rule,” said RJD national vice-president Shivanand Tiwari. “When NDA loses power in Bihar, Nitish Kumar and Sushil Kumar Modi will be jailed for the Srijan scam,” he added.
The Srijan scam, which surfaced in August last year, involves the pilferage of more than Rs 1,900 crore of government funds by Bhagalpur-based NGO Srijan Mahila Vikas Sahyog Samiti (SMVSS) allegedly in connivance of several politicians between 2007 and 2017. Nitish Kumar had recommended a CBI probe into the scam on August 18, 2017 following demands by Lalu Prasad Yadav. CBI registered 10 cases related to the scam in August 2017 and four fresh cases in June this year.
The Income Tax department had raided the residence of Sushil Kumar Modi’s cousin sister Rekha Modi and several others in three towns of Bihar in connection with the scam. IT officials had also questioned her on her transactions with SMVSS and her close relations with the NGO’s late founder-secretary Manorama Devi. Rekha Modi’s purchase of expensive jewellery from a shop in Patna, Jalan Gems, was allegedly funded by the NGO.
Describing the charges faced by Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi and son Tejashwi Yadav in the IRCTC hotel tender scam as “thoroughly baseless,” Tiwari said he is confident they would be acquitted in the case. He had earlier described the multiple convictions and prison sentences awarded to Lalu Prasad Yadav in the fodder scam cases as a result of a “clear-cut political vendetta” against him.
With a 300-page book written by Sushil Kumar Modi on the RJD chief’s alleged corrupt practices set to be released in Patna on Thursday, Tiwari attacked the book as “a bundle of lies”.