IT department claims exposing Rs 281 crore racket in Madhya Pradesh, says ‘major political party in Delhi’ involved

The Income Tax (IT) department has claimed to have uncovered a racket of Rs 281 crore in Madhya Pradesh through raids carried out on Sunday and Monday, according to news reports. Carried over two days, the raids have revealed a “well-organised” racket which has traced the movement of money to a “major political party in Delhi” to its headquarters.

This also involves a sum of Rs.20 crore which has apparently been moved from the house of a “senior functionary at Tughlaq Street, Delhi” through “hawala”.

IT officials carried out raids at 50 locations across the country including Goa, Delhi and Bhopal. At Indore on Sunday, raids were carried out in the home of Praveen Kakkad – a special duty officer who works for Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath. Other properties of Praveen Kakkad were also searched.

Alongside, properties of close associates of  Kamal Nath – Ratul Puri (Kamal Nath’s nephew), Deepak Puri (Kamal Nath’s brother-in-law) and the chief minister’s former advisor Rajendra Kumar Miglani’s premises in Delhi were also raided.

Of the items recovered, mention has been made of tiger skins, unaccounted cash to the tune of Rs. 14.6 crore, firearms and more than 250 bottles of liquor.

In the raids conducted in Delhi, a cash book has been recovered which shows the transactions in the amount of Rs.230 crore – all unaccounted. Bogus billing of Rs. 242 crore and the presence of more than 80 companies in tax havens has also been found in evidence.

All these details emerged during the raids in Delhi against the close associates of a “close relative of the senior functionary”, as per reports. Tweeting after the raids, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya has mentioned that the “transfer express in Madhya Pradesh has been derailed”. Adding that there was “no loss of life, but loss of Rs. 281 crores estimated”, the BJP general secretary spoke of the Madhya Pradesh IT raids in no uncertain terms.

Opposition parties have however maintained that the raids being carried out against their top leaders are at the behest of the BJP government ahead of the Lok Sabha elections for political benefit.

Accusing the BJP of using the enforcement agencies for carrying out political witch-hunt, Kamal Nath’s media coordinator Narendra Saluja spoke to the media of “collusion” between the government and the enforcement agencies.

Wondering how the BJP had access to specific details such as the figure of Rs.281 crore before the IT department statement was released, he stated that such raids were only focused on “maligning the image of the Congress during elections”.