Former chief minister Madhu Koda, who is currently under investigation for allegedly amassing crores of unaccounted money, has fielded five Independent candidates for the forthcoming Assembly polls in Jharkhand. Among them is his wife Geeta Biruli.

Geeta will contest from the Jagannathpur (ST) seat, which was vacated by Koda after he won the West Singhbhum Lok Sabha (ST) seat this year. “We will win hands down,” Geeta, a novice in politics, said.

The remaining four candidates — all Koda loyalists — are Pappu Boipai from Chaibasa, Raju Sandil from Manoharpur, Avinash Purti from Chakradharpur and Subhash Pat Pinguwa from Majhgaon.

Manish Kumar Gupta, Koda’s spokesperson, said on Monday that the campaign of these candidates would be monitored by Vinod Kumar Srivastava, who was Koda’s campaign manager during the Lok Sabha polls.

Meanwhile, Koda continued to face the heat of the investigations against him and eight others all of whom have been named in an FIR filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

A day after his discharge from a city hospital, Koda was on Monday served fresh summons by the Enforcement Directorate, which asked him to appear in its office in New Delhi on November 15 instead of November 13.

In a related development, Devendra Mukhiya, an alleged aide of Koda, who was among those served notices by the Income Tax department to appear before it by November 6, turned up before the IT’s Additional Director (Investigation) Ajit Srivastava. Mukhiya is the second person to have honoured the IT’s notice. The first was Basant Bhattacharya, a government employee who appeared before Srivastava on November 6.

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