Tejashwi dares ED to publish list of items seized in recent raids

Bihar’s deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on Monday lashed out at the BJP and the union government for raids by federal probe agencies at his and his family’s residences and dared them to publish the seizure list

Bihar’s deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on Monday lashed out at the BJP and the union government for raids by federal probe agencies at his and his family’s residences and dared them to publish the seizure list.

Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav interacts with the media outside the Bihar assembly on Monday. (Santosh Kumar/HT Photo)

Yadav, who returned to state capital Patna on Monday afternoon and attended the second half of assembly session, was interacting with reporters.

“Thenga mila Tejashwi ke ghar se (They got nothing from Tejashwi’s house). I challenge them (ED) to make public the seizure list or I will do so,” he said. “The way things are being propagated, it seems I am the real Adani,” he said sarcastically and claimed that the ED (Enforcement Directorate) had completed raids at his Delhi house “in half-an-hour” but its officials stayed at his for hours, awaiting “clearance from above”.

He was referring to the raids in connection with the “land-for-jobs” case in which his father Lalu Prasad allegedly gave away jobs in railways in return for plots of land either at cheap prices or through gift deeds during his stint as the railway minister during 2004-09.

The RJD leader said he was not going to be cowed down by such raids. “One needs to have heart and courage to fight such fake cases. We (read Lalu family) have the courage, heart and political conscience to deal with such situations,” he said.

“We were raided the day Mahagathbandhan 2.0 was formed last year. In 2017, in the same style, they did this... people are saying, a lot of wealth has been recovered from me. I challenge them... They first use to say Benami, why don’t they say it now? What happened to those raids? What was found. Their tactics won’t work as I have the courage to struggle against them… my sister’s places were raided and photographs of used jewellery were circulated by ED,” Yadav said.

He said BJP is worried about their fate in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. “They have been rattled by the crowd at Purnia rally. Politics have gone at the lowest level and people will teach BJP a lesson,” he said.

The ED, in a statement, had said the current market value of land allegedly acquired in exchange for jobs by Lalu Prasad’s family is approximately ₹ 200 crore.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has also summoned Tejashwi Yadav for questioning in the land-for-jobs case.