Narayan Rane to Himanta Biswa Sarma: Shashi Tharoor shares list of politicians who ‘evaded’ graft probe after joining BJP

This is going around, so sharing as received. Always wondered about the meaning of न खाऊँगा न खाने दूँगा. I guess he was only talking about beef! pic.twitter.com/oggXdXX8Ac

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) February 28, 2023

The names of Union Minister and Rajya Sabha MP Narayan Rane, former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Lok Sabha MP Bhavana Gawali, Shiv Sena leader Yashwant Jadhav, Byculla (Maharashtra) MLA Yamini Jadhav, and Ovala-Majiwada (Maharashtra) MLA Pratap Sarnaik have featured in the list titled “Equality before the law?”

Narayan Rane | Narayan Rane, who was previously associated with the Shiv Sena and Congress before floating his own outfit, Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha, was accused of being part of a 300-crore money laundering racket. The probe against him stopped after he joined the BJP, the list of allegations shared by Tharoor reads.

Back in 2016, when he was with Congress, Rane, who also served as the 13th Chief Minister of Maharashtra, was accused by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of being involved in a money laundering case involving Avighna Group. He resigned from the Congress in 2017 and floated an outfit named Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha before merging it with BJP in 2019.

Suvendu Adhikari | The list further mentions the name of Suvendu Adhikari and states that though he was an accused in the Narada scam, the investigation against him stopped after he joined the BJP. Adhikari, who started off his career in the Congress, joined the All India Trinamool Congress in 1998.

The Narada sting operation was conducted by Narada news founder Mathew Samuel for over two years in West Bengal and was published on a private news website Narada News months before the 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections. In the 52-hour footage videographed by Samuel and his colleague Angel Abraham, the then TMC MP Suvendu Adhikari, along with other Trinamool parliamentarians Mukul Roy, Sougata Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Prasun Bannerjee, Suvendu Adhikari, Aparupa Poddar and Sultan Ahmad (he died in 2017), and state ministers Madan Mitra, Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim and Iqbal Ahmed were seen accepting alleged bribes in the form of wads of cash in exchange for extending unofficial favours for Impex Consultancy Solutions, which was floated by Samuel himself.

Himanta Biswa Sarma | Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the list states, was accused in a bribery scandal but the “probe against him stopped after he joined the BJP.”

In 2015, the saffron party had accused Sarma, then associated with Congress, of being a key suspect in the alleged 2010 water supply scam. In its parliamentary party meeting on July 22, 2015, the BJP released a booklet — ‘Saga of Scams in Congress-ruled States’ — in which it termed Sarma as a “key suspect” in the alleged Guwahati water supply scam involving the Congress-led state government and Louise Beger International Inc, which worked as a consultant. He joined the saffron brigade a month later.

Bhavana Gawali | “Despite skipping five ED summons, Bhavana Gawali, representing Yavatmal-Washim Lok Sabha in Maharashtra, was appointed as the chief whip of Shiv Sena Parliamentary Party as she belongs to the Shinde faction of Shiv Sena,” the list alleges.

In 2021, she and her aide Saeed Khan were arrested in a criminal case filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The ED had claimed that Gawali and Khan gained control of a public trust unlawfully by forging documents. The ED claimed that while an FIR was filed last year by Gawali as a chairperson of public trust Mahila Utkarsha Pratishthan, alleging misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 7 crore by one of its trustees, it was a garb by the accused to save themselves. The ED alleged that the public trust was converted into a company under the Companies Act and Gawali, her mother Shalinitai and Khan were named as directors in it for their benefit.

Shinde camp leaders | The list also mentions the names of Shinde camp leaders like Yashwant Jadhav, Yamini Jadhav and Pratap Sarnaik, who, it says, evaded probes by aligning with the saffron party.

The allegations against Yashwant Jadhav and MLA Yamini Jadhav were levelled by BJP leader Kirit Somaiya who accused the duo of money laundering. Yashwant Jadhav, the former chairman of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s Standing Committee, was probed by the ED in a case of alleged Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) violations. Prior to the ED action, the Income Tax officials too had attached a flat belonging to the Jadhavs in Bandra and nearly 40 properties linked to Yashwant over the charges of tax evasion in 2022.

In 2020, MLA Pratap Sarnaik, who is currently associated with the Shinde Sena, had come under the ED scanner for his alleged involvement in a money laundering case. The agency had alleged that he received kickbacks of over Rs 7 crore from Topsgrup for allegedly facilitating its contract of Rs 175 crore with the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). A probe into the case had found that Amit Chandole, an alleged close associate of Pratap Sarnaik, not only coordinated the contract with the authority for the security firm but later also planned to bribe MMRDA officials to clear some of the payments under the contract, as MMRDA had blacklisted Topsgrup due to non-payment of Goods and Services Tax (GST).

BS Yediyurappa | The last name that the list mentions is of BJP strongman and former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa himself. “BS Yediyurappa was accused in a bribery case in a housing project. The Lokayukta police filed FIR. Karnataka High Court restored a private complaint against him. He was later felicitated by PM,” the list mentions.

Yediyurappa was accused of taking bribes to the tune of Rs 12 crore to clear a contract for a construction firm to build a housing complex for the government during Yediyurappa’s 2019-21 tenure as CM. In 2022, the Karnataka Lokayukta police registered an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act-1988 and sections of the Indian Penal Code for cheating and extortion against Yediyurappa and several members of his family.