Rs 5 lakh seized from Jharkhand Congress MLA’s house

Kolkata, Aug 11: The West Bengal CID on Wednesday conducted a raid at the residence of one of the three arrested Jharkhand MLAs in connection with the probe into the cash seizure case and recovered Rs 5 lakh and an SUV from there, a senior officer of the agency said.

A CID team raided the residence of Irfan Ansari at Jamtara in Jharkhand and spoke to the politician's family members.

"This SUV was used to bring Rs 75 lakh in cash from Kolkata. We have got CCTV footage from the city's Lalbazar area. This is part of a bigger conspiracy. We have also seized ₹ 5 lakh (in cash) during the raid at Ansari's residence," the officer said, according to news agency PTI.

Apart from Ansari, the West Bengal Police had arrested on July 31 two other Congress MLAs - Rajesh Kachchap and Naman Bixal Kongari - after seizing Rs 49 lakh in cash from the car in which they were travelling.

After taking over the investigation, the CID arrested businessman Mahendra Agarwal, who had allegedly supplied the seized cash to the three MLAs.

The Congress, which is a part of the JMM-led government in Jharkhand, alleged that the BJP was trying to topple the Hemant Soren government by offering Rs 10 crore each and a ministerial berth to MLAs.

The Congress has also dragged in the name of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in the alleged conspiracy, but these allegations were rubbished by the BJP, which claimed that the grand old party was trying to hide its own corruption after the cash was found.