Andaman Coop Bank scam: Ex-Cong MP Kuldeep Sharma arrested
Port Blair (PTI): The CID on Friday arrested former Congress MP Kuldeep Rai Sharma in connection with the Andaman and Nicobar State Cooperative Bank Ltd (ANSCBL) loan irregularities case, police said.
Sharma, who formerly served as the chairman of ANSCBL, was arrested from a private hospital in Port Blair where he was admitted due to health issues.
"Sharma was admitted to Dr Ritika's Diagnostic Solutions Multi-Speciality Hospital with some health issues. In the morning, a team of officers went to the private hospital and arrested him," a senior police officer said, adding further legal steps will be determined by the court.
"If necessary, a medical board will reassess his health condition," he said.
Congress Andaman and Nicobar Islands in charge Manickam Tagore alleged that the arrest of Sharma in the ANSCBL scam is politically motivated to defame the Congress by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Speaking to PTI, Tagore, who is also a Congress MP, said, "Today, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands police arrested former ANPCC president and ex MP Kuldeep Rai Sharma. It is unfortunate that the BJP leadership and RSS continues to harass Congress leadership."
"They know that they will not be able to fight with us politically, that is why they are using police to harass our leadership. They are misusing the police and other agencies. We will fight it out, and we will stand with Kuldeep ji. He is a strong man, and we firmly believe that he will fight it out. We all stand with Kuldeep ji in this battle. All Congress family stands with him in this difficult time," he said.
On May 15, an FIR was lodged against Sharma in connection with the same irregularities.
During investigations, police detected money trails leading to the bank accounts of a driver (an employee of one of the accused in the bank loan scam), a tea stall owner at Chouldari here, and a mechanic.
Apart from Sharma, others named in the FIR include the cooperative bank’s former chairman, board members and directors/officials of the bank and several beneficiaries.
There are allegations that the bank's managing committee overlooked the recommendations of the loan screening committee and ignored the CIBIL report and mandatory documents while sanctioning loans, a police source said.
Police had received a complaint from the deputy registrar of the cooperative societies (HQ), which alleged gross irregularities in sanctioning loans to various people by the lender.
Since June 25, eight persons have been arrested in connection with the scam, including ANSCBL managing director K Murugan, bank employee Kalaivanan, Bablu Halder (director of Andaman Mormon Infrastructure Private Limited), Tarun Mondal (director Blair Enterprises Private Limited), Ajay Minz (director Andaman Treepie Adventure Private Limited), K Subramanian ( ANSCBL director) and M Sajid (Owner of M/s Andaman Escapades).
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Rahul Gandhi demands 'clean, pure' voter list; says 'vote theft' issue will explode soon
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New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the Opposition is protesting for the right to vote for every Indian and demanded a "clean and pure" voter list, asserting that the issue of alleged irregularities pointed out by him will "explode" soon as it is not related to a single constituency but the whole country.
Indicating that he would not submit a signed affidavit as sought by the Election Commission, Gandhi asserted that the data analysed by the Congress to provide "proof" of "vote theft" is taken from the EC website.
"This is their data. It is not my data that I should sign. It is their data only and has been taken from their website. This is only a move to distract," he told reporters.
The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, who participated in a protest march by the opposition on the "vote theft" issue, said the Election Commission is "silent" as the truth is before the entire nation after his charge that over one lakh votes in an assembly constituency in Karnataka were found to be fake in a research conducted by his party.
"Another thing I want to tell is that this has not just happened in Bangalore, but in different constituencies across the country, and the Election Commission knows this. The EC knows that this data will explode. What it is trying to control and hide, we will bring it out, and it will explode. The EC knows this," he told reporters.
Gandhi was briefly detained along with others as police stopped the protest march by opposition MPs from Parliament House to the EC office.
"They (EC) cannot talk as the truth is before the entire nation," the Congress leader said as he was being taken away in a bus by the police.
"This fight is not political, but for saving the Constitution," he asserted.
This fight is for 'one man, one vote' and we want a clean, pure voter list," the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha added.
He said all the MPs of the INDIA alliance were stopped and taken into custody when they were going to meet the Election Commission.
"The truth of 'vote theft' is now before the country. This fight is not political; it is a fight to protect democracy, the Constitution, and the right to ‘one person, one vote’.
"The united opposition and every voter in the country demand a clean and transparent voter list. And, we will secure this right at all costs," Gandhi claimed in a post on X later.
Gandhi had on Thursday cited data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to claim that over 1 lakh votes were "stolen" through five types of manipulation in Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka. He alleged there were 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 with fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters or single-address voters, 4,132 voters with invalid photos and 33,692 voters misusing Form 6 of new voters.
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