RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav today termed the Enforcement Directorate's order attaching a price of land owned by his family as "political vendetta" and "conspiracy" by the central and Bihar governments to gag the voice of the opposition.
He said the property attached has been wrongly showed as "benami" by the agency.
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said the attachment was "expected" as RJD chief Lalu Prasad's family has "nothing to explain."
"This is a well-thought out conspiracy of both the central and Bihar governments to put pressure on the opposition parties to gag their voice from exposing the corruption of the state government including the Srijan scam... This is not a new attachment as the Income Tax deprtment has already attached the same property," Tejashwi Yadav told reporters here.
"If there is anything wrong in it, then why agencies have not filed the charge sheet in the case even after a lapse of 150 days of filing of FIR?" Tejashwi Yadav, the younger son Prasad, asked.
He said the agencies should to file charge sheet in the matter at the earliest so that he could also fight out the matter in court to come clean in the case like his father and mother, who came out with "flying colours" in the Supreme Court in a disproportionate assets case.
Tejashwi Yadav, a former deputy chief minister and who is the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly now, said that he has not got any information from the ED so far in this regard.
The ED today attached a three-acre plot here worth Rs 45 in connection with its money laundering probe in the IRCTC hotel allotment scam case against Prasad and his family.
Agency sources said the land is allegedly in the name of the family members of Prasad and a mall was supposed to be constructed there.
The matter hogged the limelight in the wake of surfacing of soil purchase case during the previous RJD-JD(U)-Congress government earlier this year.
Prasad's elder son and ex-forest minister Tej Pratap Yadav was accused of selling soil of this mall to Patna zoo for a hefty Rs 90 lakh.
The central probe had last week questioned the RJD chief's wife and former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi in this case in Patna.
It has questioned Tejashwi Yadav twice in this case.
In July, the agency registered a case against Lalu Prasad, his family members and others under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Accusing the Union and state governments of using the central agencies as their "tool" to settle political score with opposition parties, Prasad alleged that delay in filing charge sheet was because the agencies were "manufacturing" a case out of a non-issue as all the properties are "named ones" which the agencies have claimed and showed these as "benami".
The agencies' sole objective seemed to get him (Tejashwi) and his family members embroiled in a case so that the opposition leader could be stopped from raising and exposing the various scams, including the Srijan scam, that have surfaced in the state in recent months, he alleged.
He also asked why a probe was not ordered in the case of BJP chief Amit Shah's son Jay Shah and why his family was being only targeted.
"It (the attachment) was very much expected...Lalu Prasad's family has nothing to explain... It is a clear-cut benami property which should be confiscated," BJP leader Sushil Modi told PTI in Kolkata.
He said the I-T department has already attached the same property.
Bihar JD(U) chief spokesman and MLC Sanjay Kumar Singh also took a swipe at Prasad and his family saying that the countdown for the RJD chief and his family has begun.
"Now schools and colleges will be opened on properties attached by the agencies. Lalu Prasad jee, you did nothing for the poor when you were in power but now your properties will be utilised for the benefit of the poor," he said in a statement.
Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development and RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha termed the attachment order as a "natural process" and said that the agency was discharging its duty in an impartial and fair manner and taking necessary steps required in the case.
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