Earlier today, the Congress the three MLAs and accused the BJP of attempting to topple its coalition government in the state.
The Howrah Police on Sunday arrested three Jharkhand Congress MLAs -- Irfan Ansari, Rajesh Kachchap and Naman Vixel Kongari -- who were detained in West Bengal yesterday after recovery of huge amount of cash from their vehicle. The Howrah district court sent the three MLAs to police remand for 10 days.
The three legislators were arrested after almost a day of questioning in connection with the recovery of over Rs 48 lakh from their car on Saturday.
Earlier today, the Congress the three MLAs and accused the BJP of attempting to topple its coalition government in the state. However, the Congress asserted that its coalition government led by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) is "completely secure and stable" and would complete its term.
Hitting back at the Congress, the BJP said that the state has become a "den of corruption" under the Congress-JMM government. BJP spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam accused the Congress of shifting the blame for its own legislators' corruption.
Acting on a tip-off, police on Saturday intercepted an SUV in which Congress MLAs Irfan Ansari, Rajesh Kachchap and Naman Bixal Kongari were travelling on national highway-16 at Ranihati in West Bengal's Howrah and allegedly found a huge amount of cash in the vehicle amounting to over Rs 48 lakh.
After being caught the MLAs initially claimed that they were planning to buy sarees from Burrabazar, a popular marketplace in Kolkata where sarees are available at cheaper rates, for a tribal festival in Jharkhand, officers said.
Congress' media department head Pawan Khera alleged that the government agencies, instead of doing their job, were working as an extended arm of the BJP to destabilise elected governments.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said on Twitter on Saturday that "The BJP's 'Operation Lotus' in Jharkhand stands exposed tonight in Howrah. The game plan of 'Hum Do' in Delhi is to do in Jharkhand what they did in Maharashtra by installing E-D duo."
The Jharkhand Congress has also claimed that the huge amount of cash was part of a conspiracy by the BJP to topple the Hemant Soren government, of which it is a part along with Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Besides the MLAs, there were two other people in the SUV, which carried a board mentioning "MLA Jamtara Jharkhand" along with the Congress' election symbol, police said.
Ansari is the MLA of Jamtara, while Kachchap is the legislator of Khijri in Ranchi district and Kongari is the MLA of Kolebira in Simdega district.
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 "Security personnel recover illegal money during a search operation in a vehicle belonging to a Congress MLA, in Ranchi.")
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