Bengaluru: The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka has accused the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of “pressuring” suspects in the Valmiki Corporation scam to falsely implicate the chief minister and senior members of the cabinet.
Five senior ministers of the Siddaramaiah cabinet Thursday said that the ED was sent not to probe the Valmiki Corporation scandal but to “topple the Congress government in Karnataka”.
“The Agencies that have come to Karnataka to investigate this Valmiki development board scandal…the ED that has come over here, it has come with the intention of not finding out who has done wrong but with the intention to destabilise the Karnataka government,” Dinesh Gundu Rao, the health minister and former state Congress president, told reporters in Bengaluru Thursday.
The ED is investigating a Rs 187 crore scam in the Karnataka State Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribe Development Corporation, which led to state minister B. Nagendra being sent to six-day ED custody last week.
The probe agency, in a statement Wednesday, said that “a substantial amount of funds were utilised to procure a significant quantity of liquor just prior to the general elections”, and that high-end vehicles were purchased using funds meant for development of STs.
Rao added that those who are being questioned by the ED are being pressured to name the CM, deputy CM, ministers and others in return for protection, or being threatened with consequences.
He was accompanied by Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge, Energy Minister K.J. George, Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda, Labour Minister Santosh Lad and the CM’s legal advisor, A.S. Ponnanna. Each took turns to raise certain points on how the ED is “cherry picking” cases that involve members of non-BJP governments.
Rao went on to state that the ED was acting like the “political wing” of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and not as an “independent investigation agency”.
Priyank Kharge said that since 2014, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union government has misused the ED to conduct around 3,000 raids and 95 percent of these are against members of the opposition. He added that the Modi government has also poached 444 MLAs and other elected representatives using money, intimidation and other coercive methods.
“During the UPA government, only 53 percent of ED cases were against Opposition leaders, while 47 percent were against Congress and allied party leaders. But what is the situation today?” Byre Gowda said.
The issue has led to Opposition attacks against Siddaramaiah, who admitted on the floor of the legislative assembly in the ongoing session of the Karnataka legislature that the money was illegally moved out of the corporation.
A special investigation team (SIT) has been formed to probe the case, and since the money was allegedly channeled through a nationalised bank, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is also investigating the matter.
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