Now Bihar leaders are the ED target

Raids by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Income Tax (IT) can now be predicted by even naïve observers of the Indian political scene. Many of the news readers and watchers were pretty sure that ED teams would be descending on Patna, the capital of Bihar which witnessed a new coalition taking over the reins of the State following realignment of the parties professing social justice. All such predictions have come true just within 20 hours of the new Government headed by Mr. Nitish Kumar winning the trust vote in the Assembly on Wednesday.

The CBI carried out searches at 25 locations in connection with a case filed on May 18 against the ruling partner Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, his family members and 12 others in a job-for-land case which dates back to 2009 while he was the Railway Minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet. Weaponisation of institutions set up to investigate economic crimes has been accelerated to the highest degree during the second tenure of the BJP government headed by Mr. Narendra Modi. It can be said with reasonable amount of confidence that the objective of ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ (India sans Congress) has now been replaced with ‘Opposition-mukt Bharat’ (India without an Opposition). It is no secret that the BJP Government is using the laws against economic offences to wean away some from the Opposition camp, or to tame or ruin the opposition parties and politicians.

 Nothing made it more revealing than the way defections were engineered within Shiv Sena till a majority of its MLAs were made to fall in line leading to the fall of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Government. Most of the Sena MLAs were under the ED scanner. More so was the Chief protagonist Eknath Shinde who had held the plum portfolio of Urban Development. It was only after 30 months of being with MVA that he could discover that the MVA was not doing enough for the Hindutva project.

Statistics of the misuse of laws such as PMLA speak for themselves. Though the PMLA was enacted by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and amended subsequently by Manmohan Singh Government in 2012, the ED had lodged just about 112 cases between 2002 and 2014 when the Narendra Modi government took over the reins in Delhi.

 Between 2014 and now, the ED has launched 5,310 cases, conducted, 3,086 searches, attached or confiscated assets worth Rs. 104,702 crore (Rs. 1.4 trillion) and filed 880 charge sheets. And what is the record of convictions? Only 23! There can be no conclusion other than the PMLA failing pathetically in deterring the offenders. But the legal process being tardy, one can safely assume that the intention is to ensnare rivals into litigation or force them into buying peace by ditching their political bosses.

It goes without saying that CBI raids on Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia fall into the same pattern. Given the track record of failures on the economic front and growing disillusionment of the masses with Modi government’s promises, more ED raids and CBI searches can be foreseen against all those who are eyeing the favour of the disenchanted.