The government is impartial so far as tightening the noose on co-op banks and urban cooperative banks is concerned, claim BJP cooperators. The latest case they cite is that of Beed based Vaidyanath Cooperative Urban Bank- a pocket borough of late BJP leader Gopinath Munde.
Four officials of Vaidyanath Cooperative Urban Bank and some others including a doctor from Mumbai, have been booked for entering into a conspiracy and illegally transporting Rs 25 crore in demonetised currencies for laundering.
While Ashok Jain is its Chairman, Pritam Munde, the younger daughter of late Gopinath Munde is one of the 18 Directors on its Board. The UCB is said to have been started at the inspiration of late Munde. The elder daughter Pankaja Munde is in the Cabinet of Devendra Fadnavis-Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
Searches were conducted by the CBI at 11 official and residential premises of the accused persons in Pune, Mumbai, Aurangabad and Beed. Several managers of Vaidyanath Urban Co-op Bank of Pimpri-Chinchwad and Ghatkopar branches have been booked. The trail of investigation is yet to engulf the Directors who are also alleged to have been busy in money laundering in the wake of demonetization.
Earlier, we front paged a story titled “Govt did not spare even Ahmadabad Co-op Bank” in which it was discussed that despite its Chairman Ajay Patel’s closeness to the powers-that be, the Enforcement Directorate searched the head office of the Bank as it did other banks across the country.
Amit Shah is one of the board members in the Ahmadabad District Co-operative Bank.
There have been several cases of ED and CBI raids on BJP cooperators. Income Tax officials recently raided the residence and hotels of BJP leader and former chairman of Madhya Pradesh Rajya Sahakari Awas Sangh Sushil Vaswani and former chairman of Mahanagar Cooperative bank for laundering illegal money after demonetization.
Earlier in November, BJP’s youth wing secretary from Salem, JVR Arun, was arrested by Tamil Nadu police with bundles of new currency notes worth Rs 20.55 lakh.
In yet another incident, former BJP leader Manish Sharma from West Bengal was also caught with Rs 33 Lakh in Rs 2,000 notes.
The question being raised in the media circle is if these raids are being conducted at the behest of PMO, does it not make any distinction between BJP and others. CPM as well as TMC have objected to the ED raids in their respective states. But if the govt is impartial -their objections sound hollow.