ED grills Tejashwi in land-for-job scam

NEW DELHI:  Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, who is the son of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, was questioned on Tuesday by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for almost nine hours at the agency’s Delhi headquarters in connection with investigations into the land-for-job scam.

The ED is probing laundering of wealth, allegedly amassed from job allotment in the Railways between 2004 and 2009, by the Yadav family and their associates. Lalu Prasad Yadav was the Railways minister in the Congress-led UPA government at the time of the alleged scam in which job seekers were confirmed only after they surrendered their land to the Yadav family and their associates.

Tejashwi, who arrived at the ED office around 10.45 am, left the agency office after his questioning ended post 9 pm. “The same thing is asked, the answer remains the same, nothing is going to come out when nothing happened, the people of Bihar know what is happening,” Tejashwi said while leaving the headquarters. 

This was a follow-up action on the ED raids conducted on March 10.  The agency had conducted pan-India raids and searches on at least 24 locations associated with Lalu Yadav’s kin, including Tejashwi’s, for suspected money laundering in the wake of the land-for-job scam. 

The ED alleged that assets worth more than Rs 600 crore were recovered by the ED following the raids. Tejashwi’s quizzing followed the questioning of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s daughter Misa Bharti, also a Rajya Sabha MP, who appeared before the ED for questioning in connection with the same case on March 25. 

On the same day, Tejashwi was also questioned by CBI at its headquarters in Delhi. The searches by ED on March 10 also included Lalu Prasad Yadav’s daughters -- Ragini Yadav, Hema Yadav, and Chanda Yadav