Arrested Congress leader Alamgir Alam on Monday resigned from his post as a Cabinet minister in the Jharkhand government, The Hindu reported.
Alam, who was arrested on May 15 in a money-laundering case, also resigned as the leader of the Congress Legislature Party.
This came days after Chief Minister and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Champai Soren took away the Congress leader’s ministerial posts, leaving him without portfolio, the newspaper reported.
Alam was handling the rural development, parliamentary affairs, rural works and panchayati raj departments. The Congress and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha are allies in the state.
After this, Alam tendered his resignation as a Cabinet minister in a letter to Soren, PTI reported, citing unidentified officials.
He also submitted his resignation as the Congress Legislature Party’s leader in another letter to party president Mallikarjun Kharge. “I shall remain grateful to the party leadership for providing me an opportunity to work and serve as CLP leader,” the letter said, according to PTI.
On May 15, the Enforcement Directorate arrested Alam in connection with a case pertaining to alleged irregularities in the rural development department.
Ahead of his arrest, the central agency raided premises linked to state administrative service officer Sanjiv Kumar Lal and his domestic help, Jahangir Alam, on May 6. Lal is Alamgir Alam’s personal secretary.
The raids were conducted in connection with an investigation into a money-laundering case against Veerendra Kumar Ram, the former chief engineer of the rural development ministry who had been arrested by the central agency last year.
More than Rs 32 crore was seized from a flat linked to Lal and Jahangir Alam during the raid. Subsequently, both men were arrested.
The Enforcement Directorate, in its petition filed in May in a Prevention of Money Laundering Act court, alleged that Alamgir Alam used to receive a 1.5% commission for every tender executed in his department, The Hindu reported.
Ram used to collect the commission and pass it on to the Congress leader, the central agency said, adding that several assistant engineers of the department were involved in the process of collection.
The petition also claimed that the funds and documents recovered from the premises belonging to Lal and Jahangir Alam belonged to Alamgir Alam.
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