BJD MP Ramchandra Hansda outside the CBI office.In a jolt to ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the CBI on Tuesday arrested BJD MP Ramchandra Hansda and former party MLA Subarna Nayak for their alleged links with chit fund company Nabadiganta Capital Services. Former BJP MLA Hitesh Bagarti too was arrested over the same charges.
Soon after their arrest, BJD chief Naven Patnaik suspended Hansda and Nayak from the party. The BJP issued a press release saying Bagarti is no longer its member and that he wasn’t given party ticket during polls this year.
All three were summoned by the CBI on Tuesday, for the third time in 12 days, for interrogation. In July this year, the CBI had recovered Rs 28 lakh from the house of Hansda, first time MP and secretary of the BJD Parliamentary Party in Lok Sabha. An MLA of NCP in the last Assembly, Hansda switched to BJD on the eve of polls this year.
Hansda, the founder director of the chit fund firm, had initially claimed that it was his “own money” but later changed his stand and said the money belonged to his supporters. Hitesh Bagarti and Subarna Nayak, MLAs in the last Assembly and directors of the same firm, were denied tickets in this year by the BJD and the BJP, respectively. On October 26, chairman-cum-managing director of the firm Anjan Kumar Baliarsingh and two directors — Kartikeya Parida and Pradeep Patnaik — were arrested by the CBI.
Nabadiganta Capital Services, one of the 44 chit fund firms being probed under orders of the Supreme Court, raised Rs 15 crore between August 2011 and 2013 from people promising better returns. But the company managed to return only half of the money till its assets were seized by the CID following complaints from over 20,000 depositors.
This is the second arrest of BJD men after the CBI got former chief whip and party MLA Pravat Tripathy on October 31 over his links with chit fund firm Artha Tatwa. Tripathy too has been suspended from the party and was remanded in CBI custody till November 13.
CBI sources said that more members of the ruling party might come in its net once they start interrogating Prashant Das, chief of chit fund group Seashore. Das, who is being quizzed by ED, reportedly said that Seashore made more than Rs 50 crore in different government projects. Das collected hundreds of crores of from the public by offering high interest rates and then invested around Rs 12 crore each in health, tourism, industries and science and technology departments.
So far, the CBI and the Orissa Police have made over 750 arrests in connection with the chit fund scam.
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