RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav
Lalu Yadav News: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is conducting raids at 17 locations linked to RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav in a fresh corruption case. CBI sleuths arrived at 7 AM at his Patna residence to conduct searches.
Sources said that the central agency has registered a fresh corruption case against Lalu and that raids are underway in Delhi, Patna and Gopalganj.
Sources said that the fresh case is linked to an alleged land-for-jobs scam during the period when Lalu was the Railway Minister in the UPA-I government.
Sources said that Lalu's relatives are also being raided by the CBI. Lalu, who served as the Chief Minister twice -- from 1990 to 1995 and 1995 to 1997, is trying to contact his wife and others in Patna.
Lalu's younger son and party's de facto leader Tejashwi Yadav is currently in London. Sources said that Lalu's wife and former Bihar CM Rabri Devi is alone at the Patna residence. Lalu, who was discharged on May 5 from AIIMS in Delhi, is currently in Delhi. He is staying at his daughter Misa Bharti's residence who is a Rajya Sabha MP.
CBI officials are also conducting searches at Misa's residence in the national capital. Besides, raids are underway at Lalu's bungalow in south Delhi's New Friends Colony and farmhouse in Ghitorni near the Gurugram border. Searches are underway in Patna and Gopalganj as well.
RJD responds
Meanwhile, the RJD dubbed the CBI a 'parrot' in a veiled attack at the agency as it referred to the Supreme Court's 2013 observation wherein the top court had slammed the country's premier investigation agency for being "a caged parrot" that speaks its master's voice.
Lalu, 73, was recently granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court in the Doranda treasury case -- one of the five fodder scam cases. He was first convicted in 2013 in the Chaibasa treasury case and was granted bail by the Supreme Court in the same year. He was again convicted in 2017 in the Deoghar treasury case and was sent to jail for 3.5 years.
Lalu's third and fourth convictions came in 2018 in the Chaibasa treasury case and Dumka treasury cases, respectively. While Lalu was awarded a five-year jail term in the Chaibasa treasury case, he was sent to jail for 14 years in the Dumka case. He walked out of jail in April 2021 after being granted bail.
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