Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Wednesday said the Income Tax sleuths were raiding the houses of Congress block presidents to defame him and to obstruct them from election campaigning.
“The IT department is conducting raids on Congress party workers deliberately in order to prevent them from election campaigning,” he said in a statement.
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Seeking to know whether BJP and JD(S) candidates were not distributing money, Shivakumar, who is also the Congress state president, asked why there were no raids on them. The IT department is ready with a list of people to target and they are going by that, he claimed.
“They are pressurising contractors to attribute the money found from them to D K Shivakumar. They raided the house of DK Suresh’s driver and manhandled his wife and children during the raid,” the DCM alleged.
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{{/usCountry}}The IT department could not find any cash in any of the raids on our party workers, Shivakumar said, adding this was a deliberate ploy to obstruct the Congress election campaign. “They (I-T sleuths) are specifically targeting the Bengaluru Rural district fearing election loss,” he added.
Meanwhile, Congress workers staged a protest against I-T raids on Congress MP D K Suresh’s close associate here on Wednesday. The party workers raised slogans against the BJP for the I-T raids on the house of Gangadhar, a former councilor and an associate of Congress MP D K Suresh.
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They accused the BJP government at the Centre of "tying the hands" of the Congress candidate by carrying out an I-T raid on his associates. “Gangadhar has a lot of land and is wealthy. There are a lot of wealthier people in BJP but no I-T raids are conducted on them. The I-T department is targeting associates of D K Shivakumar and D K Suresh to obstruct their campaigning,” the protesters accused.
IT raids were also carried out at the houses of Gottigere Block Congress President Sridhar, D K Suresh’s personal secretary Sujay, Chandru, Lakshman and Babu, according to sources close to Shivakumar.