Navi Mumbai: The Navi Mumbai District Congress has urged the municipal administration to suspend all development works allegedly sanctioned with political motives ahead of the forthcoming civic elections.

District Congress spokesperson Ravindra Sawant submitted a written representation to Municipal Commissioner Kailash Shinde, demanding that the ongoing projects worth Rs 600 to Rs 650 crore be put on hold until after the elections.

Sawant alleged that the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has approved several projects across wards under the influence of former corporators, despite the civic body being under administrative rule for the past few years.

“The administrator has been effectively addressing public needs and civic issues. Launching these works now appears aimed at helping former corporators take credit and secure financial gains,” he stated.

Describing the move as a betrayal of democratic values, Sawant claimed the projects were intended to influence voters ahead of the polls. He urged that all politically motivated development works be immediately suspended and resumed only after the elections under the supervision of duly elected representatives.

Patna, Oct 24: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, addressing an election rally in Bihar on Friday, took a jibe at Rastriya Janta Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Yadav for joining hands with the Congress in the Assembly election.

Mohan Yadav said the RJD chief, who once named her daughter Misa after he was arrested under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), has now joined hands with the Congress, which has become a sinking boat.

“I can’t understand what made the RJD chief stand with Congress. What is surprising is that he had once named her daughter Misa because he was arrested by the Congress during the Emergency in 1975,” Mohan Yadav said while addressing an election rally in Saharsha, Bihar on Friday.

The Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) was a highly controversial law passed in 1971 that gave the government broad powers to indefinitely detain individuals without a warrant or trial.

From 1975 to 1977, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency, during which MISA was used extensively to quell political dissent.

Lalu Yadav, who was then a political opponent of the ruling government and was arrested under the provisions of MISA during this time. He had named his daughter Misa, who was born in 1976.

Misa Bhrti (49), the eldest daughter of Lalu Yadav and Rabri Devi, is a Lok Sabha MP.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, who has been included among the top 40 strong campaigners of the BJP for the Bihar Assembly elections, has been visiting the state and addressing public rallies.

On Friday, Mohan Yadav addressed three back-to-back rallies in Bihar and launched a scathing attack on the RJD and the Congress.

The BJP has deployed an army of party workers and senior functionaries from the Madhya Pradesh unit to manage the elections, where polling is scheduled for November 6 and 11.

Apart from CM Yadav and Union Minister Shivaraj Singh Chouhan, half a dozen senior leaders, including former state BJP President VD Sharma, former home minister Narottam Mishra, state BJP organisational general secretary Hitanand Sharma, cabinet minister for youth affairs Vishwas Sarang, and former minister for cooperatives Arvind Bhadoriya, have been assigned election management duties.

In addition, state BJP in-charge Mahendra Singh and regional organisational general secretary Ajay Jamwal have been given clusters of 20 to 25 assembly seats each.

Nagpur, Oct 24: The ED attached movable and immovable properties worth Rs 67.79 crore in the form of bank balances, lands, buildings and flats linked to a businessman and a coal-based power project company involved in a Rs 4,300 crore bank loan fraud, said an official on Friday.

The Nagpur zonal unit of the ED took action against properties situated across Maharashtra, Kolkata, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh in the name of Manoj Jayaswal, his family members and others.

The operation on October 16 was conducted under the provisions of PMLA, 2002, in the case against Corporate Power Limited and others. The total attachments/seizure/frozen bank assets in this case now stand at Rs 571 crore.

The money laundering case against the company and its officials is linked to a proposed coal-based power plant in Jharkhand of 1080 MW power for which a loan was taken from a consortium of 20 banks led by the Union Bank of India.

The ED initiated its PMLA investigation based on an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Corporate Power Limited, its promoters, directors, and others for criminal conspiracy, cheating, and forgery.

The federal agency probe revealed that the accused created a network of 800 shell companies and 5,000 bank accounts to misappropriate the loan funds that were declared non-performing assets (NPA) in 2013-14.

Earlier, the agency had conducted searches in Kolkata, Nagpur and Visakhapatnam in the case and recovered cash, documents, and seized movable assets like mutual funds, securities and term deposits.

The CBI, after registering an FIR, said in a statement in 2022 that the Union Bank of India, the lead lender of the consortium, declared the account as non-performing assets (NPA) on September 30, 2013, and subsequently, the other member consortium banks also classified the said account as NPA.

The accounts of the said borrower company were declared as fraudulent on October 25, 2019, the CBI said in a statement.

Shedding light on the modus operandi used in the Rs 4,307.87 crore loan fraud, the CBI said, “It was further alleged that between the years 2009 to 2013, the said borrower had submitted manipulated project cost statements and also diverted the bank funds.”

It was also alleged that the trade receivables, mainly including transactions to related parties and funds, were diverted to a web of various companies that were dummy accounts; accordingly, the borrower was able to siphon off the funds, the CBI statement said.