RAIPUR: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday provisionally attached the party office building of the opposition ‘Congress Bhawan’ in Sukma district, south Chhattisgarh, besides the properties owned by Congress MLA Kawasi Lakhma and his son Harish in connection with the alleged liquor scam in Chhattisgarh.
A six-time Congress MLA Lakhma, who was a former excise minister, was arrested early this year and has been in jail since January 16.
The value of the immovable properties attached provisionally by the ED under the Section 5 (1) of the PMLA, 2002, for a period of 180 days is calculated as over Rs 6.15 crore. And the Sukma district Congress office building is estimated at Rs 68 lakh.
The ED cited that they are “being attached as direct proceeds of crime” as the federal probe agency suspects the proceeds from the liquor scam were used to construct the Rajiv Bhawan, built during the tenure of Lakhma as excise minister, in Sukma.
The opposition Congress taking a strong objection cited the ED's move as part of the BJP’s political conspiracy.
“The Congress Bhawans were built with the contribution from the party workers and the people. We will give accounts of every single penny spent to construct the Rajiv (Congress) Bhawan. But will the ED also probe into the Rs 150 crore BJP’s state office Kushabhau Thakre in Raipur to find out how such a huge amount was arranged by the ruling party to have an opulent building equivalent to a 5-star hotel?” asked Sushil Anand Shukla, Congress media cell chairman.
Chhattisgarh deputy chief minister Arun Sao countered the opposition and said that the ED has been pursuing the cases of various scams happened during the previous Congress regime, as the agency gathered the evidence during the searches and their investigation are continuing for long. “The law will take its own course”, Sao asserted.
In 2023, the central 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.
The ED estimated that Proceeds of Crime of around Rs 2,161 crore have been generated by the suspects in the "liquor scam".