ED officials raids Congress MP Tukaram, 3 MLAs in Valmiki Corporation scam case

BENGALURU, BALLARI: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED), which is investigating the multi-crore scam in the Maharshi Valmiki Schedule Tribe Development Corporation, on Wednesday raided the houses of Ballari MP E Tukaram, and Ballari Congress MLA Nara Bharat Reddy, Kampli MLA J N Ganesh and Kudligi MLA Dr N T Srinivas.

The raids were conducted in connection with the misappropriation of Rs 187 crore funds from the Maharshi Valmiki Schedule Tribe Development Corporation. It is alleged that Rs 21 crore from this amout was distributed among voters during the byelection to the Ballai Lok Sabha seat and the Sandur Assembly seat.

The ED has come across entries in former minister B Nagendra’s personal assistant Govardhan’s diary regarding the distribution of money. As per the diary entries, Rs 5,00,22,400 was set aside for Ballari Rural which had 235 polling stations, Rs 3.6 crore for Ballari City which had 150 polling stations, Rs 3.20 crore for Kampli, which had 180 polling stations, and Rs 3 crore for Kudligi voters where there were160 polling stations.

Each polling booth in Ballari Rural was allotted Rs 23 lakh, whilel in Ballari city, its was Rs 15 lakh, R 18 lakh in Kampli and Rs 15 lakh in Kudligi.

In Bengaluru, the ED officials raided Nagendra’s room No. 360 at the 4th block of the Legislators’ Home. The central agency had earlier recovered a photograph of bundles of currency, amounting to Rs 20 crore, which had been shared by Govardhan.

In Ballari district, a team of 60 ED officials raided five locations including MP Tukaram’s house in Sandur. The MP and the three MLAs were posed a set of 28 questions and their statements recorded.

The officials also confiscated the mobile phones of Tukaram and his wife Annapurna, Bharat Reddy and Ganesh and were trying to retrieve deleted content. They were also looking into WhatsApp call history of all the lawmakers.

In Kampli and Kudligi, the houses of N Ganesh and Dr N T Srinivas were searched. The ED officials collected documents running into hundreds of pages after the raids and were questioning the lawmakers.

The ED, along with the state CID SIT, had investigated the Valmiki Corporation scam, which took place in 2023. While the SIT had chargesheeted 12 people for creating fake bank accounts and diverting funds, the ED had arrested then minister B Nagendra after conducting a raid on his residence at New BEL Road in Bengaluru.