Alamgir Alam is currently in the eye of a storm after the ED carried out searches linked to a money laundering case.
During raids at several Ranchi sites on Monday, the Enforcement Directorate seized ₹ 25 crore in unaccounted cash from the home of a domestic helper who was purportedly connected to the secretary of Jharkhand Rural Development Minister Alamgir Alam. By the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the ED conducted raids (PMLA). The recovery was carried out by the ED from a room purportedly used by Sanjiv Lal, the personal secretary of Jharkhand minister Alamgir Alam, who provided domestic help.
5 facts about Alamgir Alam:
- Born in 1954, Alamgir Alam graduated from Bhagalpur University in 1974. A senior Congress leader in Jharkhand, Mr Alam is a four-time MLA from the Pakur constituency.
- A resident of Sahibganj district, Mr Alam was first elected to the Jharkhand Assembly in 2000 and then again in 2004. He also served as the Speaker of the Jharkhand Assembly in 2006. While Mr Alam lost the polls in 2009, he registered successive wins in the Jharkhand Assembly elections in 2014 and 2019.
- The 70-year-old is currently serving as Jharkhand’s Minister of Rural Development in Chief Minister Champai Soren’s government.
- Mr Alam is currently in the eye of a storm after the ED carried out searches linked to a money laundering case filed against Veerendra Kumar Ram, the former chief engineer of the rural development department, who was arrested last February. The ED, in its 2023 statement, said that Mr Ram “generated proceeds of crime in the name of commission” from contractors in place of allotment of tenders to them.
- The Jharkhand minister, though, claimed that he had “no official information” about the raids, adding, “I have been watching TV and it says the premise is linked to the official PS (private secretary) provided to me by the government.”
