RAIPUR: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted extensive searches on Saturday at the residences of six-time Congress MLA Kawasi Lakhma, his son Harish, and Congress leader Raju Sahu in Chhattisgarh. The raids are believed to be part of an ongoing investigation into the alleged liquor scam.
A team from the central agency, investigating the alleged involvement of Congress leader Kawasi Lakhma under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, raided his residence in Raipur. Simultaneously, other teams launched searches at the premises of Lakhma's son, Harish Kawasi, the chairperson of Sumka district panchayat, and Raju Sahu, the president of Sukma municipality. Security forces have been deployed outside their residences during the ongoing searches.
The ED is yet to reveal if vital clues or incriminating evidence linked to the scam were traced as the search actions and scrutiny of the seized documents continue.
The former excise minister in the Bhupesh Baghel cabinet, Lakhma, whose name was among the 70 others in the FIR lodged in the alleged liquor scam, was pitted against the BJP’s first timer Mahesh Kashyap in Lok Sabha polls this year from Bastar constituency and the Congress leader lost.
A prominent tribal face in Bastar, Lakhma has won the Konta (Sukma district) Assembly seat for the sixth consecutive time in the2023 assembly elections.
The ED estimated that Proceeds of Crime of around Rs 2,161 crore have been generated by the suspects in the alleged scam.
Last year, the federal probe agency investigating the “fraud” in liquor claimed a prevailing criminal syndicate had operated illegal bribe collections by controlling the high-level management of key state departments and state public sector units in Chhattisgarh.
As a commodity, the liquor though often led the state secure high revenue collections, eventually also turned as an issue of acrimonious tussle in Chhattisgarh’s political battleground between the Congress and the BJP.