Bizarre as it may sound, no top railways officials figure in the Enforcement Directorate’s Tuesday (January 9) chargesheet in the alleged ‘land-for-jobs’ scam, but Hema Yadav and Misa Bharti – two of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s daughters who are not known to have been involved in the functioning of the railways – are named.
Hema is a homemaker, while Misa is a Rajya Sabha MP.
The ED’s chargesheet is preceded by the CBI’s chargesheet, which alleged that Lalu’s wife Rabri Devi and their son Tejashwi Yadav acquired a private company named A.K. Infosystems in 2014, through which Lalu’s family members purchased land from people in exchange for railways jobs.
The ED alleges that Hema and Misa were also beneficiaries of the illegal transactions in land and money.
Of course, Hridayanand Choudhary, a Grade C railways employee who served as an officer on special duty to Lalu when he was Union railways minister between 2004 and 2009, figures in the chargesheet.
But was the Grade C employee competent enough to get the railway minister to carry out transactions for Grade D jobs in exchange for land without the involvement of any top railways functionaries? It’s a moot question.
The BJP and its supporters have consistently used the Rs 950 crore fodder scam to stoke Lalu’s perception as a corrupt leader. But there is a fundamental difference between the manner in which Union investigating agencies have approached the ‘land-for-jobs’ scam and the fodder scam.
Lalu is one of the highest-profile politicians to be convicted in the fodder scam. Photo: X/@laluprasadrjd.
As many as five senior IAS officers; over 75 employees of the Bihar animal husbandry department; several producers and suppliers of the cattle’s feed, fodder and medicines; and top politicians across party lines, including the BJP and two former chief ministers (Jagannath Mishra and Lalu) figured in the fodder scam cases.
The cases pertained to the withdrawals from the treasuries worth Rs 950 crore in excess of budgetary allocations for the animal husbandry department over a span of sixteen years (1980-1996), as pointed out in the Comptroller and Auditor General’s reports then.
Reacting to the ED naming Lalu’s daughters in its chargesheet, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha said to the media in Delhi: “The ED is doing this at the behest of the two persons at the top of the power structure to trouble their political opponents.”
He continued: “It is a fictitious case in which several FIRs were filed in 2008, and the CBI and the ED closed them in 2011 after finding no evidence. The investigating agencies reopened it suddenly in 2021-22, when the BJP’s ‘Operation Lotus’ that worked in Maharashtra, boomeranged in Bihar.
“The chargesheet in a special PMLA court in New Delhi on January 9 is a clear-cut example of political vendetta.”
Jha cited how the leaders of Delhi, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala – all non-BJP ruled states – were being targeted by the ED and the CBI. He apprehended that the investigating agencies may heap more trumped-up charges on the BJP’s political rivals ahead of January 22, the date of the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
Media focus
The mainstream media – print and electronic – largely downplayed or ignored Jha’s statements.
While the ED and CBI are issuing what Jha described as “summons after summons” to opponents of the Hindutva party like Arvind Kejriwal, Hemant Soren and Tejashwi Yadav, cadres of the RSS and the BJP are moving door-to-door with akshat to collect contributions from people in the name of Lord Ram, and Hindi newspapers from Patna to Lucknow and Delhi were full of stories on Ram, Sita, Ayodhya, Varanasi and Mathura.
Intentionally or otherwise, the visuals and narratives in the mass media are largely creating the perception that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has resurrected Lord Ram from the shackles of medieval ghulami (slavery) and restored him in the new temple being built on the site of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya.
They are, apparently, downplaying even the decisions of as many as four Shankaracharyas to boycott the consecration ceremony on the grounds that it disregards the shastras (scriptures), and focusing mainly on the themes of Lord Ram and Ayodhya couched in news and advertisements for ‘Modi sarkar ki guarantee’.
While Lord Ram and Ayodhya have acquired all the newsworthiness, the myriad scams – Pegasus, the Rafale deals, the cloud over the PM-CARES fund, the disastrous consequences of demonetisation, and education and ration scams reported in Madhya Pradesh over the last decade – besides the unabating violence in Manipur and the selective bulldozing of minorities in Uttar Pradesh, appear to be topics of the distant past.
‘Will not be cowed down’
Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi has said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited everyone to participate in the pran pratishtha [consecration] ceremony in Ayodhya and as such, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar, who offer chadar on the mazars and bow down in gurdwaras, must attend the January 22 event. There should be no politics on such a divine occasion.”
But the Hindutva cadres and supporters are heard discussing mirthfully how Nitish, Lalu as well as Akhilesh Yadav – Samajwadi Party president and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh – were in a ‘fix’ over the issue and how they would likely suffer politically in the face of the RSS and BJP blowing up religious issues in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
The Bihar media is largely agog with speculation about how Lalu was ‘pressuring’ Nitish to make his son Tejashwi the CM; how Nitish is upset at not being nominated as the ‘convener’ of the INDIA alliance; and how Nitish has been working on going back to the BJP.
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Such stories have been doing the rounds ever since the Bihar CM dumped the BJP in August 2022 and joined the Mahagathbandhan with the RJD, Congress and Left parties, despite leaders from his Janata Dal (United) and the RJD unequivocally denying them.
In the process, the news of over 4.5 lakh youths getting jobs; 65% reservation for OBCs, SCs, STs and the extremely backward classes; as well as the state government’s work on education, health and infrastructure has been relegated to the periphery.
It’s not that the leaders of the Mahagathbandhan (who are now also known as leaders of INDIA) are not unnerved by the developments.
“Of course, we are anxious. The BJP under the cover of Ayodhya and the Ram Temple has let loose the investigating agencies to trouble Lalu, Tejashwi and others who are a threat to the saffron party,” Jha said.
“But we will not be cowed down. We will take the battle to the court of the people.”
Nalin Verma is a senior journalist, author, media educator, and independent researcher in folklore.
