BJP MP Yashwant Sinha addresses the media in Ranchi on Sunday. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Ranchi, Nov. 15: First phase of the Assembly elections less than a fortnight away, the BJP and the Congress today went on an offensive against former chief minister Madhu Koda, facing investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and income tax department on charges of amassing over Rs 2,000 crore through hawala transactions and illegal investments.

So far, both parties were soft-pedalling the issue of corruption fearing that the fire that tarnished Koda’s image after nationwide raids might singe some of their senior leaders too. However, sensing that their silence over the plunder of state coffers was sending a wrong message to the electorate, the parties decided to go vocal.

Former external affairs minister and Hazaribagh MP Yashwant Sinha demanded a CBI probe and said bureaucrats who cleared the mining lease and other money-spinning files and corporate houses that lapped up the benefits should be brought under the ambit of investigation.

Sinha alleged that the Congress-led government at the Centre was busy covering up the misdeeds of Koda and his men in order to save other political heavyweights involved in the multi-crore scam. He wondered why the ED had not arrested Koda till now and observed that the former chief minister should be made to reveal the names of those he paid kickbacks to be in power.

Party colleague and MP Prabhat Jha has written to President Pratibha Patil, demanding that Koda be asked to reveal all names.

Sinha said it was an open secret that the former chief minister misused government funds to gift some 500 motorbikes to his workers to win the Lok Sabha elections. “We will urge the Speaker to cancel his membership.”

The Congress, too, is on a sticky wicket over Koda. In a damage control exercise, spokesman Shailesh Sinha said that if the party came to power, it would set up a commission to probe all corruption cases since 2000.

State party president Pradeep Balmuchu dared Koda to reveal the names of those who figured in his kickback diary. “Who has stopped him from doing so?” He maintained that the Congress was never on “good terms” with Koda. “We neither compromised with corruption nor gave Koda shelter,” he clarified. “He (Koda) was not a saint before he became the chief minister with Congress support,” another senior party leader quipped, requesting anonymity.

In Chaibasa, Koda reiterated his claim that some political bigwigs had hatched a conspiracy to tarnish his image before the Assembly polls. “I shall expose them at the right time,” he said.

Political observers believe that neither the Congress nor the BJP will go the whole hog against Koda. While the former lacks a moral ground since it supported Koda for almost two years, the latter is equally defenceless as he was the mines minister in the Arjun Munda government.