In Rajasthan, the Enforcement Directorate [ED] has been conducting raids on the identified locations of prominent politicians and businessmen for the last three years. During this period, ED targeted more than half a dozen prominent politicians, including the Minister of State for Home of the state. However, in three years, huge amounts of black money were recovered during the raid but no arrest has been made. Not only this, the Central Investigation Agency came on the back foot in the lockers of Ganpati Plaza in which ED conducted a massive raid with the claim of cash and jewellery worth crores.
Is ED only focused on grabbing the headlines?
In the year 2020, ED created a stir across the country by raiding the premises of CM Gehlot’s elder brother Agrasen Gehlot. Apart from
this, raids were conducted on the identified premises of Rajiv Arora, Dharmendra Rathore and Minister of State for Home Rajendra Yadav. The media was also kept away during all the raids. Now, the discussion has started that in the last three years, ED has grabbed a lot of headlines by conducting raids at various places, but till now it has not been able to uncover any major scam. The action taken at Ganpati Plaza has also tarnished the reputation of this prestigious agency in the country. Instead of exposing the black money case here, ED returned quietly.
Kirori Lal Meena’s claims sparked the raids at the Ganpati Plaza
On 13 October, BJP leader Kirori Lal Meena alleged that there was black money worth crores in the lockers of Ganpati Plaza. After that, ED started combing the treasury of Ganpati Plaza along with the Income Tax Department.
Kirori Lal Meena had revealed that there was 50 kg of gold and black money worth Rs 500 crore in 100 lockers located at Ganpati Plaza. However, the investigation has been going on for about 14 days but there is no major disclosure in the charge sheet.
As per the claim, till now only two key revelations (17 October, Rs 1.25 crore and 1 kg gold was seized, and on 22 October Rs Rs 2.46 crore were seized) have been made in Ganpati Plaza, these revelations have also been presented by the Income Tax Department after its investigation and not by the ED, as it seems to be on the back foot. These days, the Income Tax Department is investigating 339 lockers out of 1100 underground lockers.
No effect even after raids on politicians
On Thursday, ED raided the house of Congress state president Govind Singh Dotasra, but nothing has been revealed yet.
The ED had put the CM’s son and RIC Chairman Vaibhav Gehlot in the dock, however, no concrete evidence or revelation has been presented yet. If we look at the statement of the Chief Minister, he said, “The more action ED takes, the stronger will be the Congress.” Gehlot said that during the BJP rule, 3010 raids were conducted, but only 881 cases were presented in the charge sheet. Now, if we look at these mechanisms, to date both parties have not been affected much by the ED raids.