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Amit Shah flags income tax raids to target SP; Akhilesh responds
The SP’s ABCD went thus: A meant ‘apraadh aur aatank’, B meant ‘bhai bhatijawad’, C meant corruption and D meant ‘danga’. But the BJP has now changed all that, says Shah
LUCKNOW Income tax raids, first on leaders of opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) and later on the premises of Kannauj-based businessman from where substantial amount of cash was unearthed, have now become a full-blown election issue in Uttar Pradesh (UP) with Union home minister Amit Shah and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav both raising the issue to target each other.
Attending the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ‘Jan Vishwas Yatra’ in Hardoi, Shah, in the presence of former Congress leader Jitin Prasada and former Samajwadi Party heavyweight Naresh Agarwal, hit out at the Congress and BSP, and claimed the SP had got its ‘ABCD’ all wrong before flagging the I-T raids, which he claimed had caused ‘pait mein machlan (stomach ache)’ to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.
“The SP’s ABCD went thus: A meant ‘apraadh aur aatank’ (crime and terror), B meant ‘bhai-bhatijawad’ (nepotism), C meant corruption and D meant ‘danga’ (riots). But the BJP has now changed all that,” Shah said, adding that just as an expert batsman puts a full toss away, the BJP too will win the 2022 UP polls handsomely.
Shah also spoke of how Ayodhya temple became a reality under the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, how ‘Advaniji (party veteran and former deputy Prime Minister LK Advani) had set out on a rath yatra for the temple cause. He also spoke of how “SP, BSP and Congress tried to stall temple construction.” But, his repeated mention of I-T raids indicated the BJP’s plan to corner the SP on the issue.
“I-T raids had started giving stomach ache to bhai (brother) Akhilesh who questioned the exercise and described them as a result of ‘rajnitik dwesh’ (political bitterness). But today, he is lost for words as ₹250 crore cash has been recovered from the person who made ‘Samajwadi itra’ (Samajwadi perfume). Has anyone seen as much cash in their lifetime? Tell me, whose money was it? It’s the money of UP’s poor that has been unearthed from this perfumer,” said Shah.
“Akhileshji don’t try to scare us. Before coming to power, Modiji (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) had made it clear that the BJP would end corruption and wipe out black money. Today, when I-T raids are being carried out, Akhileshji is getting stomach ache. But I have come here to tell you that under the BJP government there is no place for the corrupt,” added Shah.
Shah’s prolonged reference to the cash recovery from the Kannauj perfumer came shortly after Akhilesh denied his party’s relationship with the Kannauj perfumer Piyush Jain (who has now been arrested for recovery of substantial cash and massive tax evasion). Yadav’s comments came during his party’s ‘Vijay Rath Yatra’ in Unnao.
“They are now wrongly claiming the businessman’s link with us. If the tax agency reveals details, his connection with several BJP people will surface. I am thankful to the media that even those who were earlier linking the businessman to us, had by afternoon, (of the raids) corrected themselves. The raids weren’t intended at Piyush Jain, but at Pushpraj Jain. Due to some confusion, the BJP perhaps ended up getting their own businessman raided,” said Akhilesh.
Pushpraj (Pampi Jain), whom Akhilesh referred to, is the SP MLC who had launched the Samajwadi itra (perfume) in Lucknow in November and who lives in the same Chipatta locality of Kannauj as Piyush Jain. Pampi denied reports that he had launched the perfume with the help of Piyush, but the BJP was claiming a connection.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath too had been raising the issue of I-T raids to target the SP, whose chief Akhilesh, accused the BJP and its leaders of being experts at lying. In 80 hours of searches at four houses of businessman Piyush Jain, a team of officials found 23 kg of gold, ₹17 crore cash and 600 kg illegally procured sandalwood stored in one of the houses in Kannauj, the directorate of GST intelligence (DGGI) had said in a statement on Monday.
The sandalwood was worth ₹6 crore. Jain had been sent to 14 days of judicial custody. These recoveries were apart from ₹177.45 crore in cash recovered from Piyush Jain’s premises during another raid.
Before Jain was raided, I-T teams had carried out raids on some leaders of the Samajwadi Party, including party’s national spokesman Rajiv Rai. The BJP and the SP had earlier used cartoons to spar at each other over I-T raids.
