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(Pi Bureau)
New Delhi : Hours after Nitish Kumar took oath as the chief minister of Bihar in alliance with the BJP, Enforcement Directorate on Thursday registered a case of money laundering against Lalu Prasad and his family members in a railway hotel allotment corruption case of UPA tenure. This was confirmed by an official. Lalu Yadav was the railway minister during the first tenure of UPA government.
The development comes weeks after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered an FIR earlier on July 7 against Lalu Prasad, his wife Rabri Devi, their son Tejashwi Yadav and five others, which include a former IRCTC managing director, in a case of alleged corruption linked to a grant of tenders for the maintenance of BNR hotels to Sujata Hotels.
According to the reports, the Indian Railways had more than a year back red flagged Patna-based company Sujata Hotels for charging higher tariffs in hotels leased to it by a rail Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) before the CBI’s FIR against Lalu Prasad and family for the alleged irregularity. As per the records made available, the two hotels in question – BNR Puri and BNR Ranchi – were leased out in 2006-07 to Sujata Hotels by the IRCTC as ‘budget hotels’ on the premise that they were located close to railway stations and would cater mainly to train passengers.
In the FIR, the investigative agency alleged that Lalu Prasad Yadav and family received a plot of land in Patna in return for awarding tenders to the company run by two businessmen Vijay Kochhar and Vinay Kochhar. Lalu Prasad and son Tejashwi Yadav have however denied the charges
