Cong MP faces CBI probe

The team will also visit Itanagar, capital of Arunachal Pradesh, where there are some charges against the Congress MP when he was a leading contractor in the hill state, and then proceed to Kohima, Nagaland to probe into a massive lottery scam.

It may be recalled that Union Home Ministry joint secretary GK Pillai, in-charge of the north-east, had on December 23 last year, asked the CBI to inquire into the allegations against Subba, following a complaint by Assam Chief Minister, with the CBI formally registering a case for preliminaryprobe against Subba on January five.

Sources said the probe, which was dormant for a few weeks after the election, in which Subba came out winner from the prestigious Tezpur Lok Sabha seat in North Assam, was speeded up following Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling plea to the Prime Minister.

Subba, it may be recalled, is known as a quot;multi-millionairequot; even in the Congress party circles here, and though there was initial opposition to his nomination for Tezpur, the senior party leaders soon became quiet, allegedly after Subba won them over.

The only Congress leader who kept opposing Subba8217;s nomination was former Union minister of state for parliamentary affairs in the Rao government, Matang Singh, whom the party denied renomination to the Rajya Sabha last month.

The Congress MP, it may be recalled, has been accused of being a murderer in a remote Nepal village, to which he is suspected to belong, had allegedly committed a jail-break in that country and escaped to India, tried to settle first inSikkim and on failing, ran away to Tinsukia in Upper Assam in the sixties.

Born in Sangbasu village in eastern Nepal, Subba was sentenced for life by a Nepal court and lodged in the Eelam jail there, from where he escaped in 1962.

Said to be largest lottery operator of the country, Subba, who has his lottery head-quarters in Regal Building in Conaught Place, New Delhi, has in his grip government lotteries of several states including Meghalaya, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

While the CBI is stated to have initiated the probe at the instance of the Union Home Ministry, Nagaland governor OP Sharma is also understood to have written to the Union Home Ministry to institute a probe into a huge lottery scam in that state.

Meanwhile sources here said that Subba is desperately trying to influence some BJP leaders close to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in order to stop the investigation, while some senior Congress leaders who helped him get the party nomination for the Tezpurseat are also trying for a stop to the probe.