Under ED scanner in bank loan ‘scam’, Haryana Cong MLA and Hooda confidant: Who is Rao Dan Singh?

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday raided the premises of Haryana Congress MLA Rao Dan Singh and his family as well as a metal fabricating company and its promoters as part of its money laundering probe linked to an alleged Rs 1,392 crore bank loan fraud case.

A law graduate and businessman, Rao Dan Singh is a four-time Congress MLA from the Mahendragarh constituency.

The ED teams raided Singh’s residence, his farmhouse and the premises of a metal fabricating company Allied Strips Limited (ASL) and its promoters, Mohinder Agrawal and Gaurav Agrawal, among others. About 15 locations in Mahendragarh, Bahadurgarh, Rewari, Gurugram, Delhi and Jamshedpur were searched by the ED teams. In its probe, the ED has found that Rao Dan Singh’s family and companies took loan from the ASL that was eventually written off, sources said.

Belonging to the Ahir (OBC) community, Singh, 68, has been a close aide of state Congress stalwart and ex-chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the state Assembly.

Singh also contested the recent Lok Sabha polls from the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency, but lost to the incumbent BJP MP Dharambir Singh with a margin of 41,510 votes.

In his affidavit submitted to the Election Commission while filing his nomination for the Lok Sabha polls, Singh mentioned that he was not facing any criminal case. He declared his assets to be worth Rs 18.04 crore.

Singh was first elected from Mahendragarh in 2000, when he emerged as a giant-killer by defeating BJP veteran Rambilas Sharma, who had been winning the seat continuously for four terms since 1982.

Singh also trounced Sharma in the 2005 and 2009 polls. However, months after the Narendra Modi-led BJP stormed to power at the