One more feather of corruption in cap of INDIA bloc: BJP after Soren resigns as Jharkhand CM

The ED has issued a fifth summons to the Delhi chief minister for his questioning in the excise policy linked money laundering case, official sources said Wednesday.

New Delhi; After Hemant Soren stepped down as Jharkhand Chief Minister following daylong questioning by the Enforcement Directorate, the BJP on Wednesday dubbed him “one more feather of corruption” in the opposition bloc INDIA’s cap.

After Soren’s resignation, senior JMM leader Champai Soren was named as his successor. JMM’s Rajya Sabha MP Mahua Maji claimed that the 48-year-old Hemant Soren was in the “custody” of the Enforcement Directorate.

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The chief minister was questioned by the agency for more than seven hours during the day on money laundering charges in an alleged land fraud case.

Reacting to the development, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla wrote on X, “One more feather of corruption in cap of ‘INDI Alliance’ from Jharkhand.”

The BJP leader also used the opportunity to target Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and said, “There was a time (when) Kejriwal used to demand arrest of Lalu, Soren, Sonia. These days he defends them because he himself is (the) mastermind of Sharab Ghotala (excise policy scam).”

The ED has issued a fifth summons to the Delhi chief minister for his questioning in the excise policy linked money laundering case, official sources said Wednesday.

Kejriwal, who is the national convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), has skipped four earlier summonses issued by the probe agency over the last four months. Reacting to the development in Jharkhand, BJP Rajya Sabha MP and former state unit chief Deepak Prakash told PTI, “The people of Jharkhand have got justice today.” “In his four-year rule, Hemant Soren tried to turn Jharkhand into ‘loot-khand’. He was the king of all the scams – liquor scam, land scam and mining scam. His followers also looted Jharkhand,” the BJP leader charged.

Prakash said people expect Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put a curb on corruption and it is “Modi’s guarantee that the corrupt will be put behind bars for looting people’s money”. “No one is above the law. Be it a king or a pauper, everyone is equal before the law,” he added.