NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Chhattisgarh Congress leader Ramgopal Agrawal in connection with an alleged liquor scam, officials said on Tuesday.
The central probing agency is seeking custodial interrogation of the arrested accused, they said. Officials said Agrawal, a former treasurer of the party, was taken into custody under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
According to the agency, the alleged liquor scam was orchestrated between 2019 and 2022, when Chhattisgarh was ruled by a Congress government led by then Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.
The agency alleged that a "criminal" syndicate involving senior bureaucrats and political figures had "completely hijacked" the Chhattisgarh Excise Department, resulting in a "massive loss" to the state exchequer to the tune of Rs 2,883 crore.
So far, the agency has filed seven chargesheets and named 85 accused, including Bhupesh Baghel’s son Chaitanya Baghel, former Chhattisgarh Excise Commissioner Niranjan Das, former Joint Secretary Anil Tuteja, former Excise Minister Kawasi Lakhma and former Deputy Secretary in the Chief Minister’s Office Saumya Chaurasia, among others.
The ED has alleged that the entire liquor trade in the state between 2019 and 2023 was nothing short of a state-run extortion racket, masked by policy and powered by political muscle.
At the heart of it, the ED claims, was the then Chief Minister's son, who was allegedly pulling strings not only to divert black money into real estate but also to build an empire of cash fuelled influence.
Chaitanya Baghel’s real estate project, Vitthal Green, was allegedly the laundromat through which illicit liquor cash was turned into clean capital. On the surface, it was a housing complex. Behind the scenes, it was, in the ED's own words, "a construction site for corruption."
