Patna, July 11 (PTI): Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh on Friday said his party will contest the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections independently, even as he backed INDIA bloc's allegation of voter list manipulation at the behest of the BJP.

In a free-wheeling conversation with PTI Videos here, the Rajya Sabha MP also strongly defended his party colleague and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, who is under fire for ridiculing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visits to small countries.

The AAP leader also claimed that Modi has been given "a big signal" from RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, who has said that people aged over 75 years should not remain in active public life.

"We will contest the upcoming Assembly polls alone," said AAP’s Bihar in-charge emphatically, when asked about the possibility of an alliance with INDIA bloc, of which the party was a part during last year’s Lok Sabha elections.

Singh, whose party had adjusted seats with the Congress in Delhi but refused to do the same in Punjab, added, "Look at the state of affairs in the (INDIA) coalition. Leaders like Pappu Yadav and Kanhaiya Kumar were shoved aside. What can one say of such a formation."

The allusion was to an alleged incident that took place earlier this week when a section of the media claimed that Yadav, an Independent MP who supports Congress, and Kanhaiya, the national in-charge of the party's students' wing NSUI, were prevented by security personnel from getting on to an open vehicle, atop which Rahul Gandhi, Tejashwi Yadav and other key leaders of the INDIA bloc addressed the public.

Yadav has, however, since denied the media reports saying he never intended to climb atop the vehicle.

Singh, whose party has maintained that the INDIA bloc was "meant only for the Lok Sabha polls," was asked whether the opposition was aimed at "helping" the BJP, which shares power in the state, through "wrongful deletion of names of voters".

Singh replied, "Such wrongful deletions have been happening. It happened in Delhi where the BJP got thousands of names deleted. Most of the people whose names were deleted wrongfully happened to be our migrant brethren from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, but they were branded as Bangladeshi migrants".

He added, "The BJP is whining about illegal Bangladeshi migrants in Bihar, especially the Seemanchal region. But what has it been doing during the 20 years it has been in power in the state? If indeed there are illegal immigrants, on whom was the onus to drive them out?"

"In the four months since BJP assumed power in Delhi, slums are being demolished rendering homeless our migrant brethren. And West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is right in alleging that migrants from her state are also being targeted", he alleged.

The AAP leader was also asked about Mann's jibe against Modi, which has drawn flak from the Ministry for External Affairs, in the first instance of its kind.

Singh said, "The BJP is very good at creating a spectacle (dramebaazi) and therefore it got the MEA to jump into the matter. In any case, Mann did not say anything that demeaned the office of the PM. Modi's visit to countries of little significance like Papua New Guinea is, indeed, bewildering. The Punjab CM was right in questioning the priorities of the PM who seems to have little time for his own country of 144 crore people".

Asked about the remark by Bhagwat that has triggered speculations that it was aimed at Modi, who turns 75 in September, the AAP leader said, "It is a very big signal (bada ishara) to the PM from his ideologue. He must step down in time and follow the example he had himself sought to set by packing off leaders like Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Sumitra Mahajan on the ground of old age".

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Mumbai, Jul 26 (PTI): Enforcement Directorate searches against the companies of Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani in Mumbai continued for the third day on Saturday with the agency recovering a number of documents and computer peripherals from multiple locations, official sources said.

The raids were launched on July 24 by the federal probe agency as part of an alleged Rs 3,000 crore worth bank loan fraud-linked money laundering case apart from multiple other allegations of financial irregularities with crores of rupees by certain companies.

The searches, being conducted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), are continuing at some locations out of the more than 35 premises that were covered in Mumbai since Thursday, the sources said.

These premises belong to 50 companies and 25 people including a number of executives of the Anil Ambani Group companies.

ED sources had said the investigation primarily pertains to allegations of illegal loan diversion of around Rs 3,000 crore, given by the Yes Bank to the group companies of Ambani between 2017-2019.

Reliance Power and Reliance Infrastructure, two companies of the group, had on Thursday informed the stock exchanges saying while they acknowledge the action, the raids had "absolutely no impact" on their business operations, financial performance, shareholders, employees, or any other stakeholders.

"The media reports appear to pertain to allegations concerning transactions of Reliance Communications Limited (RCOM) or Reliance Home Finance Limited (RHFL) which are over 10 years old," the companies had said.

The ED, the sources had said, has found that just before the loan was granted, Yes Bank promoters "received" money in their concerns.

The agency is investigating this nexus of "bribe" and the loan.

The sources said the ED is also probing allegations of "gross violations" in Yes Bank loan approvals to these companies including charges like back-dated credit approval memorandums, investments proposed without any due diligence/credit analysis in violation of banks credit policy.

The loans are alleged to have been "diverted" to many group companies and "shell" (bogus) companies by the entities involved.

The agency is also looking at some instances of loans given to entities with weak financials, lack of proper documentation of loans and due diligence, borrowers having common addresses and common directors in their companies etc., the sources said.

The money laundering case stems from at least two CBI FIRs and reports shared by the National Housing Bank, SEBI, National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) and Bank of Baroda with the ED, they said.

These reports indicate, the sources said, that there was a "well-planned and thought after scheme" to divert or siphon off public money by cheating banks, shareholders, investors and other public institutions.

The Union government had informed the Parliament recently that the State Bank of India has classified RCOM along with Ambani as 'fraud' and was also in the process of lodging a complaint with the CBI.

A bank loan "fraud" of more than Rs 1,050 crore between RCOM and Canara Bank is also under the scanner of the ED apart from some "undisclosed" foreign bank accounts and assets, the sources said.

Reliance Mutual fund is also stated to have invested Rs 2,850 crore in AT-1 bonds and a "quid pro quo" is suspected here by the agency.

Additional Tier 1 (AT-1) are perpetual bonds issued by banks to increase their capital base and they are riskier than traditional bonds having higher interest rates. An alleged loan fund diversion of about Rs 10,000 crore involving Reliance Infrastructure too is under the scanner of the agency.

A Sebi report on RHFL is also part of the ED probe.

The companies also said in their filings before the stock exchanges that Anil Ambani was not on the Board of either Reliance Power or Reliance Infrastructure and that they had no "business or financial linkage" to RCOM or RHFL.

Any action taken against RCOM or RHFL, the companies said, has no bearing or impact on the governance, management, or operations of either Reliance Power or Reliance Infrastructure.