₹42 crore bundled in 23 boxes found at Bengaluru contractor's house in Income Tax raid

The raids are underway at the houses of other contractors in the city and huge recovery of money is sparking a political row in both Karnataka and Telangana.

The Income Tax sleuths have recovered a huge stash of unaccounted cash from a contractor’s house in Bengaluru on Friday, as per report in PTI. The raids are underway at the houses of other contractors in the city and huge recovery of money is sparking a political row in both Karnataka and Telangana.

₹42 crores bundled in 23 boxes found at Bengaluru contractor's house

According to the report, a total amount of ₹42 crore with ₹500 denominations that were bundled in 23 boxes were recovered from a contractor in Bengaluru. However, the Income Tax department is yet to announce the official recovered amount from their multiple raids across the city.

The BJP, which is in the opposition, alleged that the Congress party was trying to divert money to poll bound Telangana. BJP leader and former deputy CM Ashwath Narayan said, “The amount was collected by the Congress party to send it to Telangana for upcoming polls. The Congress government has made Karnataka as their ‘ATM’ for polls in other states. This is just a sample amount, and a bigger amount is yet to be recovered. I urge contractors to speak up on the issue.”

Meanwhile, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah refuted the allegations. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Siddaramaiah said, “No state will ask for money from other states, and we won't give our money to other states. The BJP is just making baseless allegations to draw unnecessary attention."

The Karnataka Contractors’ Association president Kempenna said that the contractor had not been involved in any contract work for eight years and said that he had several other businesses, involving agriculture and stone crushing.

Telangana ministers K Taraka Ramarao and Harish Rao also slammed the Karnataka Congress and called it a ‘50% commission government.’