The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Sanjeev Lal, the personal secretary to Jharkhand Congress minister Alamgir Alam and his household help Jahangir Alam.

The arrests were made late on Monday night after extensive ED raids at Lal’s servant and subsequent recovery of Rs 35.23 crore cash.

On Monday, the Enforcement Directorate conducted raids at multiple locations in Ranchi and recovered a mountain of cash from household help of Sanjiv Lal.

The raids were conducted in connection Virendra Ram case.

The probe agency had arrested Virendra K. Ram, the chief engineer at the Jharkhand Rural Development Department, in February 2023 in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in implementation of some schemes.

Reacting to the raids at the servant of his secretary, Congress leader and Jharkhand Minister Alamgir Alam said that Lal is a government employee, who had served as PS to two former ministers.

“Sanjiv Lal is a government employee. He is my personal secretary. Sanjiv Lal has already been a personal secretary of two former ministers. There are several government employees and we usually appoint personal secretary based on experience. It is not right to comment on the raids before the ED investigation is completed,” Alamgir stated.

Meanwhile, the BJP has slammed the Congress-JMM-RJD alliance government in Jharkhand and accused it.of turning the state into “Lootkhand”.

“The most corrupt government in history: Congress-JMM-RJD government together turned Jharkhand into ‘Lootkhand’! 25 crore cash has been found from the house of the servant of Minister Alamgir Alam’s PA, counting is still going on…,” BJP leader Amar Kumar Bauri said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi linked the recovery of the uncounted cash to the Gandhi family.

“Why is it that the first family of the Congress (Gandhis) are close to people from whom such a huge amount of notes were recovered? Was the money kept aside to be supplied elsewhere? Has the first family of Congress set up such godowns across the country? The nation wants to know from Shahzade of Congress,” said Modi.