In a major action, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) team on Friday seized the land of Jaunpur MP Babu Singh Kushwaha in Lucknow. The land located in front of Scooter India on Kanpur Road is worth crores. The ED team also brought a bulldozer and razed the illegal construction on the land to the ground. The ED has taken the action under the Money Laundering Act. The case pertains to the time when Mayawati was Chief Minister of the state and Babu Singh Kushwaha was a minister in UP in 2007.
NRHM scam
In 2005, the UPA government at the Centre started the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scheme. Regarding the scheme, the Mayawati government was accused in embezzlement of the money sent by the central government. The corruption case took a grim turn as two CMOs of UP, Dr Vinod Arya and Dr BP Singh were murdered in Lucknow in 2010 and 2011.
Later, Deputy CMO Dr YS Sachan, who was in jail for the scam in the same case, was also found dead in jail. Babu Singh Kushwaha is an accused in this NRHM corruption case and the ED is investigating money laundering charges against him.
Kushwaha's political journey
After the charges of corruption were raised against him, Kushwaha resigned from the ministerial post. His political career suffered a decade of setbacks before he got a ticket from the Samajwadi Party (SP) to contest the Lok Sabha election from the Jaunpur constituency in 2024. He garnered 5,09,130 votes and defeated BJP's Kripashankar Singh by a margin of nearly 1,00,000 votes. Singh got 4,09,795 votes. As of now, Babu Singh Kushwaha is the Deputy Leader of the Samajwadi Party Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha.
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