Bengaluru/New Delhi: Income Tax Department officials on Wednesday raided Karnataka Power Minister D K Shivakumar’s residences and a private resort outside Bengaluru where 44 Gujarat Congress legislators are housed and said Rs 10 crore in cash have been seized.
The taxmen’s searches stoked a major political row as the development echoed in Parliament and triggered cries of foul play by the Congress.
“Our state Investigative Wing is conducting searches at the residence of a Karnataka Minister (Shivakumar) and the room he is staying at a resort (Eagleton) near Bengaluru where some MLAs from another state (Gujarat) are put up,” Income Tax Joint Commissioner S Ramesh said in a statement in Bengaluru.
The searches were conducted under Section 132 of the Income Tax Act as an evidence-gathering exercise in compliance with statutory requirements, he said.
The searches were believed to have been conducted at Shivakumar’s houses in Bengaluru and Delhi.Officials said Shivakumar’s aide and his driver have been detained for questioning.
“The Income Tax officials seized over Rs 10 crore during the raids at over 39 places in Delhi and Bengaluru,” an IT official said.
“About Rs 7.5 crore was seized in Delhi and Rs 2.5 crore in Bengaluru,” the official said.
The early morning exercise sparked an uproar in both the houses of Parliament where the Congress claimed that it was an attempt to terrorise the Gujarat MLAs ahead of the August 8 Rajya Sabha elections, in which senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel is fighting a close battle to retain his seat.
Already six Congress lawmakers have resigned from the Congress.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley rejected charges of political motives behind the searches and said these had nothing to do with the Congress legislators’ stay at the Bengaluru resort and developments in Gujarat.
He said the searches related to “an individual”, an apparent reference to Shivakumar, and said the tax officials visited the resort because he was staying there. They (income tax officials) had to bring him to his house to check certain documents seized during the searches, Jaitley said.
The Income Tax Joint Commissioner said the searches were in continuation of an investigation going on for considerable time.
He maintained that the timing of the searches was decided well in advance, and that it had nothing to do with the shifting of Gujarat Congress MLAs to Karnataka.
The Congress had flown its 44 Gujarat lawmakers from Ahmedabad on July 29 and lodged them in the Eagleton resort at Bidadi, 30 km from Bengaluru, to prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party from poaching them ahead of the Rajya Sabha poll.
The resort is located in the Bengaluru Rural Lok Sabha constituency, represented by Congress legislator D K Suresh, younger brother of Shivakumar, a lawmaker from the Kanakapura assembly segment in the district. —IANS
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