Hours after the West Bengal Police arrested three Congress MLAs from Jharkhand on Sunday, 31 July, Rajiv Kumar, the lawyer who filed Public Interest Litigations (PILs) against Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren over alleged mining irregularities, was also arrested by the Kolkata Police.
Kumar was arrested on charges of allegedly duping people of money amounting to Rs 50 lakh.
The three arrested MLAs are Irfan Ansari, MLA from Jamtara, Rajesh Kachhap, MLA from Khijri, and Naman Bixal, MLA from Kolebira. On Sunday, they were suspended from the Congress party.
The arrests of the MLAs came on a day when another Congress MLA from Jharkhand, Kumar Jaimangal, lodged a police complaint in Ranchi, accusing the three arrested MLAs of “offering Rs 10 crore” to “topple the present JMM and Congress government” allegedly at the behest of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.