The inevitable yet heart-rending moment has finally descended on the power corridors of Chhattisgarh when Suryakant Tiwari, an absconding kingpin of mining, coal transport and host of other highly suspicious businesses, surrendered before a local court on Saturday unleashing thus a rippling effect among those considered high and mighty of the state. The court later granted his 12 day custody to Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Flanked by A battery of lawyers, Suryakant emerged in the court of Additional Sessions Judge (Special Acts) Ajay Singh Rajput and declared his surrender. Lawyers representing the ED, however, opposed his surrender saying there is no such provision in the ongoing money laundering probe against him. The ED then formally arrested him and sought his 15 day custodial remand from the court. More high profile arrests may also take place in near future, sources claimed.

The court granted the ED with 12-day custody of Tiwari who had been missing since October 11 when ED sleuths raided more than 15 premises related to his family members, friends in administration and politics, accomplices and business associates.

IAS officer Samir Vishnoi along with two others who were arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) early this month have already been put behind the bars under 14 day judicial custody by the court in this case.

Suryakant Tiwari who used to be a small-time entrepreneur engaged mostly in trades related to government supply or approval, gained notoriety with the advent of Congress dispensation in 2018. His residential and commercial premises were also raided in July in which Income Tax sleuths had siezed huge quantity of sensitive documents related to illegal cash transaction and investments.

He also has a case against him in Bengaluru for allegedly crushing his mobile phone, attempting to flush it in a star hotel lavatory and chewing some important evidential documents. His influence was such that several, IAS-IPS officers and MLAs of ruling Congress takes pride in having a pic shot with him or have joyrides with him to most sought after exotic destinations in India and abroad. He acquired sort of a John De Rockfeller appetite for grabbing existing entreprises and businesses during three year Congress regime.

He first came into the limelight when he allegedly accompanied more than 50 Congress MLAs in a chartered flight to Delhi discernibly to press the Congress brass to rethink its plan of change of guard in Chhattisgarh. The move angered Gandhi family but gave a lease of life to embattled Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.

Meanwhile, ED officials have also been questioning Baghel’s Deputy Secretary Saumya Chaurasiya, Raigarh Collector Ranu Sahu, her IAS husband JP Maurya and others for around a week now. They are accused of graft and money laundering. Sahu is widely seen as complicit with Surya in illegal acquisition of businesses and amassing disproportionate wealth during her stint as Collector Korba and Raigarh.

The ED began its raid on October 11 on more than 15 locations related to Tiwari, his family and associates, Ranu Sahu, JP Maurya, Vishnoi and former Congress lawmaker Agni Chandrakar along with others.

Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel who warned last month that his police will act tough against any complaint of hounding by the Central agencies, appears to cut a sorry figure these days with almost all his key aides gradually inching closer to ED’s tightening grip.

Income Tax teams earlier in July had raided 29 locations related to same set of people in which they claimed to have stumbled across evidences of collection of more than Rs. 200 crores of illicit money, cash payments made to government officials, and evidences suggesting election funding with the ill-gotten money.