New Delhi/Bhubaneswar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday took a swipe at Congress over the series raids at MP Dhiraj Sahu’s premises in Odisha, leading to recovery of over Rs 350 crore ‘black money’ and about 3kg gold ornaments.
Sharing a morphed video, created by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) based on the Spanish hit series ‘Money Heist’, PM Modi wrote, “In India, who needs ‘Money Heist’ fiction when you have the Congress Party, whose heists are legendary for 70 years and counting!”.
In India, who needs ‘Money Heist’ fiction, when you have the Congress Party, whose heists are legendary for 70 years and counting! https://t.co/J70MCA5lcG
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 12, 2023
The video posted by BJP with the caption, ‘Congress presents the Money Heist’, has pictures of Rahul Gandhi with Sahu and the multi-crore cash recovered from almirah and bags during the raids with Money Heist’s background score. Rahul’s face has also been used on a man jumping on neatly-arranged bundles of cash.
After continuous searches for five days, Rs 354 crore was recovered from multiple properties in Odisha linked to Baldeo Sahu and Group of Companies Ltd, a distillery firm run by family members of the Congress MP. The counting of the seized currency notes at three SBI branches — Balangir, Sambalpur and Titlagarh — concluded on Sunday. The highest of 176 bags filled with cash were taken to SBI’s Balangir branch, where additional manpower had to be deployed for counting the notes.
An estimated Rs 305 crore was counted at the Balangir branch, Rs 37.50 crore at Sambalpur and Rs 11 crore at Titlagarh. Around Rs 280 crore cash was seized from Sahu’s Balangir’s premises alone, according to sources.
Meanwhile, a political blame game has kickstarted among the ruling BJD, the BJP, and the Congress in Odisha over what is being considered the highest-ever cash seizure by an agency in a single operation. While opposition BJP protested at multiple locations in the state, holding the Naveen Patnaik-led government responsible for black money in liquor joints, the ruling BJD questioned its stand contrary to its central leadership.
While alleging that seized money was meant to be used in the Chhattisgarh election but could not be transferred to the neighbouring state for some reason, BJD spokespersons Lenin Mohanty and Sofia Alam accused the saffron party leaders in the state of attempting to bail out the Congress. “Is there some deal between the BJP and Congress in Odisha?” they asked.
Congress, on the other hand, claimed that it was unnecessarily being dragged into the controversy by the BJD and BJP and termed them as two sides of a same coin. The grand old party had earlier distanced itself from Sahu, terming it a his private matter.
