Marandi alleges BJP of buying six party MLAs for 11 crores, shows letter which links to Amit Shah

Ranchi: In a major political development in Jharkhand, leaders representing the Jharkhand Vikash Morcha (Prajatantrik) along with its party supremo, Babulal Marandi met Jharkhand’s Governor, Draupadi Murmu with a letter head (dated- January 19, 2015) , allegedly belonging to Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)’s former state president of Jharkhand Ravindra Rai. According to the letter, Rai had appraised with Amit Shah, BJP’s national president Amit Shah regarding the Rs 11 crores which were given to six JVM MLAs, who had joined BJP.

Rai had left BJP along with Babulal Marandi in 2006 to form JVM. He, however, later returned to the saffron fold and was made BJP’s state president. At present, he is the sitting Member of Parliament (MP) from Koderma.

During 2014’s Jharkhand Assembly polls, BJP had won 37 seats while JVM had been able to get eight. BJP was short of seven MLAs to form the government in Jharkhand. Surprisingly, six of JVM’s MLAs (Navin Kumar Jaisawal, Randhir Kumar Singh, Amar Kumar Bauri, Ganesh Ganjhu, Alok Chaurasia and Janki Yadav) jumped the fence to help BJP form the government.

The letter also mentions the name of the then Jharkhand in-charge Trivendra Singh Rawat, who is currently the chief minister of Uttarakhand. Significantly, it too got written that the rest of the amount will be paid later by Jharkhand’s Chief Minister Raghubar Das, after 36 months of six MLAs taking party membership.

Watch Babulal Marandi’s press conference:

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ9VhZniTxA[/embedyt]

“Since 2015 we have been saying that our MLAs had been brought by the BJP. We are even fighting a case at the High Court, maintaining that the MLAs had been bribed and also lured with the promise of plum posts. Two of these leaders were made ministers and rest given the posts of Chairman in Boards and Nigams. But now we have got this letter, which confirms that they had been bribed too,” said Marandi, during a press conference organized immediately after meeting the governor in Ranchi.

He added, “Before the governor, we have demanded that an FIR should be filed against those leaders, whose names are mentioned in the letter as briber. Also, the six MLAs who joined BJP should be stripped off of their assembly membership, immediately. And, there should be a CBI inquiry to probe the issue.”

eNewsroom, tried contacting Rai for his comment but the Koderma MP’s phone had been switched off.