Drawing parallels with actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan who was recently given a clean chit by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren said on Sunday that investigative agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) were being misused by the BJP and dared anyone to harm him.
Mr. Soren said consensus had been reached with the Congress for the Rajya Sabha seat. “I was in a meeting with Sonia Gandhi ji for more than an hour yesterday [on Saturday]. We have decided the candidate, it will be announced in a couple of days in Jharkhand,” he said. Elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats are to be held on June 10 and the last date for filing nominations is May 31.
The leader of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) that is in power in alliance with the Congress said the State was typical and people here were capable of delivering justice in their own way. “People here will sever someone’s head and walk to the police station to admit to the crime. We have our own ways of serving justice,” Mr. Soren said, adding that the BJP was creating an environment to sully his image and that of the government with corruption allegations.
2006 case
Mr. Soren, who met a group of journalists in Delhi, said the ED was investigating embezzlement of funds worth ₹4 crore in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) dating back to 2006.
“The scam was reported in two districts — Khunti and Chhatra. I doubt if ED officials have visited the two districts even once. They are trying to target something else through this scam. But I want to say that nobody can harm me,” Mr. Soren said. He said he had not received any summon from the agency so far nor had they given any public statement regarding the investigation in the MGNREGS scam.
Office-of-profit charge
Jharkhand’s Mining Secretary Pooja Singhal had been arrested in the scam by the ED. The Chief Minister is also facing queries by the Election Commission over an office-of-profit allegation that he allotted to himself a stone quarrying unit on government land outside Ranchi in 2021 while he also held the Mines portfolio. Under Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act, Mr. Soren could face disqualification for entering into a government contract.
Responding to the allotment of quarrying unit, Mr. Soren said, “they are accusing me of a stone-chipping scam of a very small land. Being a Chief Minister why will I indulge myself in such a small scam? We have come from jungles, may be my intellectual capacity is inferior.”
He said State government officials were being threatened in the past three years and not a single mining auction had taken place.
The Chief Minister also demanded a classification of Adivasis or Scheduled Tribes in the census exercise. “They want to finish the Adivasis, soon there will be no Adivasis left,” he said.
When asked that despite mounting corruption allegations by the BJP, he was not able to counter them, Mr. Soren said, “it is not necessary to answer everything. I will speak when the time is apt.”
