ED conducts searches at 10 locations linked to Rajasthan minister Rajendra Yadav

The raids are in connection with alleged irregularities involving a company in which Yadav is a director, it is learnt. Comes a year after Income Tax dept’s raids in the case.

Rajasthan Minister Rajendra Yadav addressing a rally | @RajendraSYadav_

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Tuesday conducted searches at 10 locations linked to Rajasthan minister Rajendra Yadav and his relatives across the state in connection with an alleged midday meal scam, ThePrint has learnt.

Yadav, a Congress MLA from Kotputli, holds the home, higher education, planning, state motor garage, and justice portfolios in the Ashok Gehlot-led state government. The raids come months before assembly polls are due in Rajasthan

The raids were conducted across Jaipur, Kotputli, Viratnagar and Behror, according to a source in the investigation agency. They were allegedly part of the ED’s investigation into money laundering allegations against Rajasthan Flexible Packaging Limited, a company in which Yadav is listed as a director.

The company supplies packaging materials for the state’s midday meal schemes. There were allegations of irregularities in both the supply and funding of the packing material used in the scheme, ThePrint has learnt.  

According to the source, the minister’s residence was among the places raided. This is the second round of searches by a central agency in this case. On 7 September last year, the Income Tax Department conducted searches at 53 locations linked to the minister across Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. 

ThePrint reached Yadav over the telephone and via text message. This report will be updated when a response is received. 

What agencies are investigating 

Rajasthan Flexible Packaging Limited is part of the Yadav Group, which also has interests in the hospitality and agro-based sectors. 

According to the website of the Registrar of Companies, Yadav is one of the company’s eight directors. The minister’s son Madhur Yadav is also associated with the company.

Among the various locations raided last September was the minister’s ancestral home in Kichha, Uttarakhand. 

Addressing the press then, Yadav had said he was being targeted and that he had quit business after joining politics. 

“It is our family business. My father was in the business from 1950 to 1952, I have been doing it before I entered into politics and both my sons are also engaged in the business. We are into the production line and supply materials to companies,” he had said. 

In the same statement, he had also denied being associated with any kind of “political funding”, although it’s still unclear what he was referring to. 

Earlier this year, soon after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted raids in the state in connection with an alleged scam over teachers’ recruitment, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had said that the entire nation was worried over “one-sided action” being taken by the central agencies.

“They send the ED before elections but we are not afraid. Let the ED do its work, we do not have any problem. The ED, the Income Tax department and the CBI should do their work but the rule of law should prevail. Whether it is the CBI, the Income Tax, or the ED, we will welcome them if they work impartially. But you are taking one-sided action and the whole country is worried,” Gehlot had told the press in Jaipur.

(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)