New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) that has shown a penchant for booking or raiding the BJP’s rivals right before elections had little to show in Delhi as the votes polled in the assembly elections were counted Tuesday.
The agency, which functions under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, had booked Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar in a money laundering case just before the Maharashtra assembly elections. It backfired as Pawar turned it into an attack on Maratha pride and was able to galvanise voters against the BJP, eventually resulting in the fall of Devendra Fadnavis-led government in the state.
The ED became proactive ahead of the Delhi assembly elections as well.
On 27 January, in the middle of a heated electoral discourse on Shaheen Bagh protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, the agency floated an unsigned report, alleging that the controversial Popular Front of India (PFI) pumped in over Rs 120 crore to “finance the cost of demonstrations and gherao against the CAA Bill till 6 January 2020”.
It said the money began flowing in soon after the Citizenship Amendment Bill was introduced in Parliament on 4 December.
The agency said it “stumbled upon the information while investigating the PFI’s role in a 2018 case registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)”. The PFI is a Muslim organisation headquartered in Kerala.
The agency claimed that there was a direct correlation between the dates of deposits and withdrawals from these accounts and the dates of demonstrations against the CAA in different parts of the country.
It also floated names of senior opposition leaders and lawyer-activists in connection with the withdrawal of money, which the latter vehemently denied. These allegations made headlines on TV and in newspapers even as BJP leaders continued to target its political rivals by accusing them of backing the anti-CAA protests.
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‘The PFI-AAP-Congress link’
In a second attempt, on 6 February, just two days before Delhi went to polls, the ED again claimed in an unsigned note that PFI president Mohammed Perwez Ahmed was in touch with AAP’s Sanjay Singh.
The note, the ED said, was submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
“Ahmed has been in touch with AAP’s Sanjay Singh through personal meetings and Whatsapp calls,” the note said. “Ahmed has also been in touch with Congress leader Udit Raj.”
The note further said Rs 120.5 crore was credited in 73 bank accounts maintained by PFI, most of which was allegedly sent to the national headquarters of Shaheen Bagh protesters.
“In the past several months out of the donations received by PFI, more than half was received in cash. Two thirds was deposited in the bank whereas one third was kept at the National Headquarters office of Shaheen Bagh situated in Shaheen Bagh,” the note said.
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Arrest of Sisodia’s OSD by CBI
The ED, however, wasn’t the only central agency that became active during the Delhi election campaign.
On 6 February, the CBI arrested Gopal Krishna Madhav, the officer on special duty (OSD) with Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, and booked him in a case of corruption.
According to the CBI, Madhav, a Goods and Services Tax officer in the trade and taxes department of the Delhi government, accepted a bribe of Rs 2 lakh from transporters to “waive off their GST” dues.
The CBI said it could not find Sisodia’s involvement in the racket, but claimed that the arrest was just the tip of the iceberg as they suspected the involvement of more Delhi government officials.
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Muslim votes are the jokers in the pack. They decide who comes to power, and who loses power. This is the tyrany of the minority. What is democracy, if the minority can rule us?