While ED raided the premises of Mahendergarh MLA Rao Dan Singh and his son, what dealt a major blow to former CM Hooda is the arrest of Surender Panwar, Congress MLA from Sonipat, who is his close aide, in a money laundering case linked to illegal mining. A report by Aayush Goel
With Haryana assembly elections just a couple of months away, the Congress, beaming with newfound confidence after Lok sabha performance in the state, is seeing red as the Enforcement Directorate launched a crackdown on party MLAs. The targets include former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and legislators and people considered close to him. As ED turns the heat with raids, attachments and arrests, the Congress cries political vendetta while BJP insists there is nothing political about it. After the attachment of property of M3M builders in a money laundering case listing Hooda as accused, ED raided premises belonging to Hooda’s close associate and Mahendergarh MLA Rao Dan Singh and his son. What however has come as a major blow is the arrest of Surender Panwar, Congress MLA from Sonipat and close aide of Hooda, in a money laundering case linked to illegal mining.
Bhupinder Hooda’s son and Congress’s Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda, who is leading the popular ‘Haryana Maange Hisab’ campaign says the raids stem from questions he is asking. “The BJP has got scared of the questions the Congress is asking during our ongoing campaign. Rather than replying to the 15 questions about the BJP’s misgovernance we have asked them, it is misusing investigative agencies against opposition leaders. Central investigative agencies, the ED, and the CBI should stop working like cells of the BJP”, he says. On the other hand, Chief Minister Nayab Saini refutes allegations of any vendetta, saying ED’s action is ‘non-political’. “It’s an action by an independent investigative agency,” he says. The ED raids are bound to impact the forthcoming Haryana elections as it will on one hand put Congress under a corruption scanner, on the other it will create a deficit of winnable candidates for the party.
The cases
First-time MLA Panwar runs mining businesses in Haryana and Rajasthan. In January this year, the ED had conducted a 36-hour raid on his Sonipat residence as part of the money laundering probe. The ED alleges that he was involved in a Rs 25-crore money laundering case. Other than ED’s case filed in January 2024, Panwar has seven other money laundering cases registered against him. Prior to Panwar’s arrest, ED raided the properties of Rao Dan Singh.
Dan Singh is a four-time MLA from Mahendragarh and was fielded for Lok Sabha from the same constituency and lost. Allocation of ticket to him cost Congress Tosham MLA Kiran Choudhary and her daughter Shruti, who have shifted to BJP now. Dan Singh has properties in five cities, including Mahendragarh and Gurugram. These were searched for over 14 hours. Various documents, bank details and property-related papers were seized. The ED, in its statement, highlighted that in addition to getting cash, they had got papers of 32 ‘benaami’ land holdings and flats from these properties. Speculations about the impending arrest of Daan Singh’s son and him are rife.
Even Bhupinder Hooda couldn’t escape ED’s heat. Though no direct action has been initiated against him, the ED attached properties linked to M3M India Infrastructures Private Limited, valued at Rs 300 crore and spread over 88.29 acres in Gurugram’s Bas Hariya village, in an alleged money laundering case. This was in connection with a case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation alleging corruption involving Hooda, the then chief minister, and others.
Prior to this action, Sikandar Singh, son of another Congress MLA, Dharm Singh Chhokkar, from the Samalkha seat in Panipat, was arrested by ED on May 1 in a money laundering case related to fraud involving homebuyers’ money. Sikandar is alleged to have collected Rs 360 crore from 1,497 people in exchange for the promise of homes in Sector 68, Gurugram. However, the firm failed to deliver the houses. An FIR was lodged against his firm in Gurugram under charges of fraud and forgery. In July 2023, Chhokkar’s residence was also raided. Chhokkar’s anticipatory bail plea in this case was rejected by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Congress cries foul
The Congress has alleged that the BJP government led by Narendra Modi is ‘misusing’ the central agency to target opposition leaders ahead of elections. “It is in Amit Shah’s fitrat (nature). Wherever he goes in the country, ED and CBI follow. All that has transpired over the past few days is the result of Shah trying to suppress the Opposition’s voice ahead of elections,” Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan highlighted how the action was timed after Amit Shah’s visit on July 16 in Mahendergarh. He said that BJP may try to target Hooda as well owing to his growing popularity ahead of assembly elections.
Sanjay Sharma, state spokesperson of the BJP while dubbing the ED action ‘apolitical’, said that the party had not interfered at any level in the operations of the ED. “Does a thief ever say he is a thief? The Congress thinks that the BJP government controls the CBI and ED, the way it did when it was in power. BJP doesn’t believe in doing that. The BJP government has given complete freedom to central agencies to act against offenders. If the Congress leaders think they are being unduly targeted, they should let the truth come out and have the BJP government defamed for misuse of agencies. But they know the truth and this is the reason they are crying foul,” said Sharma.
The ED’s probe details
Leaving nothing to speculation or imagination, the ED has been issuing detailed statements for their action in Haryana. According to a media statement issued by the agency in the Panwar case, they arrested him after raids at 20 premises in Faridabad, Sonipat, Yamunanagar, Karnal, Chandigarh and Mohali in January this year. Following the same, a case was registered against Panwar and his associate, former MLA Dilbag Singh. Dilbag, a relative of Indian National Lok Dal leader Abhay Chautala, was a two-time MLA from Yamunanagar in 2009 and 2014.
During January raids, the ED had seized Rs 5.29 crore in cash, gold valued at approximately Rs 1.89 crore, two vehicles, various electronic devices, documents related to investments in India and abroad, and other incriminating materials, five illegal firearms, several cartridges and rounds of ammunition, and 138 bottles of liquor (exceeding permissible legal limits) from Dilbag’s premises. Dilbag was arrested in January itself while Panwar was nabbed in July.
“These operations were conducted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, as part of an investigation into large-scale illegal mining of sand, boulders, and gravels in Yamunanagar and nearby districts of Haryana. The case involves Dilbag Singh and Surender Panwar, an MLA, and their associates. The investigation revealed that illegal excavation and sale of minerals (boulders, gravel and sand) were being carried out by screening plant owners and stone crushers in Yamunanagar through illegal transportation of mined minerals without generating the required e-Rawana bills from the Mining Department portal or by presenting fake physical copies of these bills upon inspection”, read the statement.
Similarly, in the case of Dan Singh, raids were conducted under the provisions of PMLA at 16 locations in Delhi, Gurugram (Haryana), Mahendergarh (Haryana) and Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) against a company called Allied Strips Limited, its promoters Gaurav Aggarwal and Mohender Aggarwal, Dan Singh, his son Akshat Singh and their entity, Suncity Projects Private Limited, and others.
An FIR by the CBI accused them of causing wrongful losses of more than Rs. 1392.86 crore to the consortium of banks led by Canara Bank. ED said their modus operandi included siphoning the funds borrowed from banks to other companies in the form of unsecured loans & advances, writing off debts of various debtors, bogus transactions and taking cash in return, which had been invested for buying land and other long-term purposes. In M3M’s case, ED said that it initiated an investigation based on a FIR registered by the CBI under various sections of IPC, 1860, and Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, against former Chief Minister Hooda, Trilok Chand Gupta, the then director of the Department of Town and Country Planning, R.S. Infrastructure Private Limited, and 14 other colonizer companies.
