Those who join BJP become holy: Tejashwi Yadav amid fresh CBI raids in Bihar

The CBI had, last week, conducted raids in Bihar in alleged land-for-railways-jobs case at the residence of RJD MLC Sunil Singh in Patna, among other locations.

Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav on Friday said anyone who joins the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) “becomes holy” and escapes the scanner of probe agencies. The remark comes days after the 32-year-old Rashtriya Janata Dal leader, along with several members of his family, came under the lens of the CBI for a fresh probe.

Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav (Photo by Santosh Kumar /Hindustan Times)

“The BJP has more than 1,000 MLAs and more than 300 MPs. Has anyone's house been raided in eight years? Are BJP people holy? If their houses are not being raided, who is saving them,” Yadav said while speaking to media persons. “The ones who go to BJP become holy,” he said.

The CBI had, last week, conducted raids in Bihar in alleged land-for-railways-jobs case at the residence of RJD MLC Sunil Singh in Patna, among other locations. According to reports, the CBI sleuths recovered more than 200 deeds after raids across 25 locations in Delhi, Gurugram's Haryana, and Patna, Madhubani and Katihar in Bihar.

The raids came on a day when the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ in Bihar, led by chief minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD, proved its majority in the state Assembly in a trust motion.

At the time of the raids, Singh said they were being conducted “intentionally”. "There is no meaning to it. They are doing it thinking that out of fear, MLAs will come in their favour," Singh, who is also the chairman of Biscomaun Patna, said.

Earlier this week, Yadav took to Twitter alleging that the central government had made probe agencies “a tool for political vendetta”. “Eight years ago, the countrymen had never raised such questions on their integrity and functioning. Right now, our opposition to the CBI is not with the institution but with their politically motivated functioning,” he had said in a series of tweets.

“A lot of charges were framed, character assassination took place through the dock media, but as soon as those alleged corrupt opposition leaders joined the BJP, they got certificates of purity. Someone became a minister and someone became a chief minister,” he had said.

The CBI has already filed cases against Tejashwi Yadav, his father Lalu Yadav, mother Rabri Devi, and his two sisters in the land-for-jobs scam. Yadav, who was recently elected to the post of deputy CM, had said while taking oath, that he was not scared of any of the central agencies.