The former excise minister in the Bhupesh Baghel cabinet, Lakhma, whose name was among the 70 others in the FIR lodged in the alleged liquor scam, was pitted against the BJP’s first timer Mahesh Kashyap in Lok Sabha polls this year from Bastar constituency and the Congress leader lost.A prominent tribal face in Bastar, Lakhma has won the Konta (Sukma district) Assembly seat for the sixth consecutive time in the2023 assembly elections.The ED estimated that Proceeds of Crime of around Rs 2,161 crore have been generated by the suspects in the alleged scam.Last year, the federal probe agency investigating the “fraud” in liquor claimed a prevailing criminal syndicate had operated illegal bribe collections by controlling the high-level management of key state departments and state public sector units in Chhattisgarh.As a commodity, the liquor though often led the state secure high revenue collections, eventually also turned as an issue of acrimonious tussle in Chhattisgarh’s political battleground between the Congress and the BJP.
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