BENGALURU: Almost a week after Income-Tax raid in the state, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar said on Wednesday that the I-T department itself has clarified that the raid has nothing to do with any leader of the Congress party and attempts are being made to repeatedly target his party and leaders out of jealousy.
“The Income Tax Department itself has clarified that the IT raid has nothing to do with any leader of the Congress party. Attempts are being made to repeatedly target our party and leaders politically out of jealousy that they did not get power in Karnataka. The recent IT raid is one of them. The IT department has given an answer to the leaders who accused us for no reason. At least let them reduce such hit-and-run allegations,” posted the Kannada Deputy CM on X.
The Ministry of Finance in its official release on October 16 made no mention of the Congress party or its leaders in the Income Tax Department searches.
“Income Tax Department conducted a search and seizure action in the case of some Government contractors, Real estate developers and their associates on October 12, 2023. About 55 premises were covered during the search action in the State of Karnataka, AP, Telangana and New Delhi,” read the official release.
Earlier, BJP leader CT Ravi alleged that the recovered money was part of Congress’ illegal fund collection meant for upcoming polls.
The BJP leader also demanded a CBI enquiry into the matter and said that the truth would prevail after a proper investigation.
The working president of Bharat Rashtra Samithi KT Rama Rao also accused Congress of pumping huge amounts of money into Telangana.
Rama Rao, in a message on ‘X’, asked people to say “No to Scamgress” in the state.
Speaking on the raids, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ashwath Narayan on Tuesday also took a dig at the Congress party and said “It is an ATM Sarkar and is completely exposed.”
The BJP staged a protest in Bengaluru over the alleged corruption in the state. As a way to protest, the protestors carried a fake ATM model on which Karnataka Congress–ATM Sarkar was written with money withdrawn out of it.
DK Shivakumar on Tuesday refuted the allegations made by the BJP that the money recovered in the raids conducted by the Income Tax department belongs to the Congress government.
Income Tax officials in a raid on the residence linked to a former corporator in Bengaluru city on October 13 unearthed an amount of Rs 42 crore stashed in 23 cartons.
According to officials privy to the investigation, the cash was packed in cartons and stashed under the bed of a flat owned by the corporator. The IT sleuths raided five locations linked to the former corporator.
The raids sparked off a heated debate with BJP alleging that the money was part of Congress’s illegal fund, meant for campaigning in assembly polls in Telangana and four other states to be held in November. (ANI)