The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday raided the premises of RJD MLA Kiran Devi, her husband and former legislator Arun Yadav and some others as part of a money laundering probe linked to alleged possession of disproportionate assets, official sources said.
Kiran Devi represents the Sandesh constituency in the Bhojpur district, which her husband had won in the 2015 assembly polls.
Reacting to the development, Tejashwi Yadav, Leader of the Opposition in Bihar Assembly and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad’s son and heir apparent, said the raids were proof that the BJP, which rules the Centre, was “scared”.
According to the sources, when ED sleuths reached Kiran Devi’s residence on Tuesday morning, the MLA was not there. Searches were also conducted at the premises linked to the MLA in Bhojpur’s Agiaon.
Despite several attempts by PTI, the RJD MLA was not available for comments on the Enforcement Directorate (ED) action.
The ED’s money laundering case against Arun Yadav and Kiran Devi stems from a total of 16 FIRs filed by the Bihar Police at various police stations in Ara district.
The agency filed a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against the couple in 2021.
The ED has earlier recorded the statements of Arun Yadav and some family members as part of this probe, even as it obtained property documents and bank account statements of the Yadav family and a linked entity — Kiran Durga Contractors Pvt Ltd.
The probe found, as per the sources, that the Yadav family acquired some 72 immovable properties such as agricultural lands, flats and residential plots worth Rs 9.90 crore in Ara district and Patna, and allegedly made cash deposits of Rs 20.5 crore between 2002-03 and 2021-22.
These assets and the cash deposits in the hands of the Arun Yadav family and the linked entities are alleged to be disproportionate to their known and legal sources of income, the sources said.
Arun Yadav is also under the scanner of the central probe agencies in connection with the land-for-job scam case involving RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and his family members.
Yadav and Kiran Devi are also being probed by the ED in connection with the illegal sand mining case and the agency had raided them last year as part of these two investigations.
Meanwhile, when journalists approached Tejashwi Yadav, who is on a state-wide “Jan Vishwas Yatra”, with queries about the raids, he quipped “It is going to make no difference”.
The former Deputy CM, who claimed that his mass outreach programme was getting an overwhelming response, added “raids targeting opposition leaders by ED, CBI or the IT department are proof that we are doing well and the BJP is scared”.
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