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‘I am illiterate’: Ex-Chhattisgarh minister Kawasi Lakhma arrested by ED in liquor ‘scam’
The Congress MLA was called for questioning to the Enforcement Directorate office on Wednesday and arrested in the afternoon.
The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday arrested Congress MLA in Chhattisgarh and former state excise minister Kawasi Lakhma in an alleged liquor scam case.
The central agency had raided the properties of the former minister and his son Harish in Raipur, Sukma and Dhamtari districts as part of a money laundering investigation into the case late last month.
It subsequently questioned the 71-year-old former minister and his son in the case.
After the raids, Lakhma had claimed that he didn't know anything about the scam and that he was ‘illiterate’, The Indian Express reported
“They asked me if I knew about the liquor scam. I said I saw it on TV and read about it in the papers but it did not come to my knowledge. I’m an illiterate person. Whatever paper was placed before me, I signed. On what they took my signature, I do not know,” he told the media a day after the raids.
The arrest and subsequent developments
Kawasi Lakhma was called for questioning to the Enforcement Directorate office on Wednesday and arrested in the afternoon.
According to Special Public Prosecutor Saurabh Kumar Pande, the central agency produced the legislator in the court of special PMLA judge Atul Kumar Shrivastav and sought a 14 days custody.
The court granted his custodial remand to the ED till January 21, less than half of the period that the agency sought.
Earlier, talking to reporters before entering the courtroom, Lakhma claimed that no document or even a single penny were found during the raids.
"I am being sent to jail in a false case," he said.
The tribal leader alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai were trying to suppress the voice of a poor tribal who was also the voice of the tribal-dominated Bastar region.
"As panchayat polls are going to take place in the state, they want to keep me away from the elections," Lakhma claimed.
Congress leader and former chief minister Bhupesh Baghel accused the ED of acting on the directives of the BJP-led Union government.
"The arrest of former minister and senior MLA Kawasi Lakhma ji is an action taken with the intention of political vendetta. On the instructions of its masters sitting in the central government, the ED has been conspiring to defame Congress leaders. The entire Congress party stands with Kawasi Lakhma ji," Baghel said in a post on 'X'.
What has ED alleged in the liquor scam case?
The ED in a statement had earlier claimed that Lakhma was the main recipient of the proceeds of crime when he was the excise minister during the Congress regime. Lakhma, as per the ED, used to receive substantial amounts in cash on a monthly basis.
The alleged liquor scam, as per the ED, took place between 2019-22 when Chhattisgarh was ruled by the Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress government. Lakhma, a six-time MLA from Konta in the Sukma district, was the excise minister then. The scam resulted in a massive loss to the state exchequer and filled the pockets of the beneficiaries of the liquor syndicate with more than ₹2,100 crore, the agency had claimed.
