Railway hotel scam: CBI searches Rabri Devi’s residence in Patna, grills Bihar Opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav

PATNA: CBI conducted searches at the residence of former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi here in connection with the Railways’ hotel tender scam. Both she and her younger son, Bihar Opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav of RJD, were grilled for about four hours.

A team of seven CBI officials reached the 10, Circular Road residence of Rabri Devi, who is the wife of jailed fellow Bihar CM and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, in the noon and looked at documents stored in the house, said sources. The mother and son were interrogated separately, they added.

The case pertains to an alleged scam in the handing over of two hotels run by the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to a private company in December 2006 when Lalu Prasad Yadav was the railway minister in the UPA-I government.

The FIR registered by CBI last year alleged that Yadav had misused his powers to hand over two BNR hotels – in Puri and Ranchi – to Sujata Hotels Private Limited for 15 years and had acquired a three-acre prime plot of land in Patna from the company’s owners through a benami firm owned by his family in a quid pro quo manner.

The tender process was allegedly rigged and manipulated by PK Goel, the then managing director of IRCTC, who also figures as an accused in the FIR registered by CBI on July 6, 2017. The central probe agency had raided the Lalu-Rabri residence a day after registering the FIR. Tejashwi Yadav was then Bihar’s deputy chief minister and his elder brother, Tej Pratap Yadav, was the health minister. The FIR had set in motion political incidents that ended in the Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance government falling on July 26, 2017.

Lalu, Rabri Devi, Tejashwi Yadav, Goel and the brothers Vijay Kochhar and Vinay Kochhar, both directors of Sujata Hotels and owners of Patna’s Chanakya Hotel, figure as accused in the case.

Tejashwi had mocked both BJP and CBI earlier this month, accusing the probe agency of having no evidence against him and his family members in the case. He had also dared CBI to file a chargesheet in the case and arrest him.

RJD and Congress leaders slammed PM Narendra Modi over the latest searches by CBI sleuths, saying he came to Bihar with the probe agency in tow.

“This shows the sheer vindictiveness of BJP. Lalujee is recuperating in a Delhi hospital, and his family is preparing for the wedding of his elder son next month. But the PM and BJP are sending CBI to their house in a futile bid to scare them,” said RJD MLA and spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav.