*Picture shows(from L to R): Raghubar Das, Anurag Gupta and Ajay Kumar

The special court( vigilance) has accepted the closure report connected with horse trading during the Rajya Sabha polls in 2016. 

The Ranchi police submitted the closure report making the court accept it due to lack of credible evidence against two accused Anurag Gupta( then Additional DG) and Ajay Kumar( Press Advisor) to the then CM Raghubar Das. 

In effect, both Gupta, who is DGP now, and Kumar, who is leading an independent life, are acquitted from the allegation that they were involved in horse trading in the RS polls in 2016. Records show that then-CM Raghubar Das was found involved in the middle of a controversy after being accused of horse trading during last month's Rajya Sabha elections. 

That time the President of Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, Babulal Marandi who is now Jharkhand state unit chief of the BJP, had released an audio tape of Das, a BJP leader, purportedly trying to pressurize Yogendra Sao, a former Congress legislator who faces criminal charges, and his wife Nirmala Devi, a Congress legislator. 

According to Mr Marandi, a day before the voting on June 11, Raghubar Das drove to the residence of Yogendra Sao in a private car. 

Sao said he recorded the conversation in which he can be heard talking about pending cases against him and Raghubar Das telling him not to worry as he will "take care of everything". 

The next day, Nirmala Devi was seen arriving for the voting accompanied by several Congress legislators but when results came, both the BJP candidates emerged as winners while the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's Basant Shoren lost. 

The unexpected loss was attributed to horse-trading by many including Anurag Gupta and Ajay Kumar in the state. 

As many as eleven Jharkhand legislators, some of them now former, were facing CBI inquiries due to cross-voting. Chief Minister Raghubar Das is yet to respond to the allegations.

 

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