The Income Tax (I-T) searches on contractors and realtors in Bengaluru that yielded a large cache of unaccounted money — ₹42 crore and ₹45 crore from two locations in the city — has led to a slugfest between the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Janata Dal (Secular) (JDS), and the ruling Congress.
The BJP and the JD(S), now in an alliance, have alleged that the recovered money was proceeds of corruption linked to clearing bills and were meant to fund the Congress for the upcoming Assembly elections in five States. The Congress has called the raids “politically motivated” and said they coincided with the election season.
The raids that went on for four days against “government contractors and real estate developers” in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and New Delhi recovered ₹94 crore in cash and ₹8 crore worth of gold jewellery, diamonds and luxury watches, totalling ₹102 crore, the I-T Department said. “The modus operandi of tax evasion detected indicates that these contractors were involved in reducing their income by inflation of expenses by booking bogus purchases, non-genuine claim of expenses with sub-contractors and claiming ineligible expenses,” the I-T department further said.
Mr. Siddaramaiah said that though the I-T Department had not mentioned any political party, BJP and JDS leaders were trying to link the money to the Congress with an ulterior motive.
Of the big recoveries, I-T sleuths recovered ₹20 crore from a property linked to R. Ambikapathy, Vice President of the Karnataka State Contractors’ Association, and ₹45 crore from the premises linked to a builder. Mr. Ambikapathy had stopped taking big contracts for a decade now, and the relator’s business turnover was not congruent with the large sums of cash found on the premises linked to him, sources said. However, Mr. Ambikapathy’s son, A. Pradeep, has claimed that the money was his and proceeds from a real-estate deal.
Former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai hit out at Mr. Ambikapathy as he was one of the faces of a campaign run by the Contractors’ Association against the previous BJP regime claiming that kickbacks sought by the government had touched an astronomical “40%”.
Stalled payments
The Congress came to power fighting on an anti-corruption plank against the previous BJP regime. Mr. Shivakumar, who also holds the charge of Water Resources and Bengaluru Development, two key spending portfolios, had stalled the payment of all pending bills and instituted inquiries to check the quality of works done under the BJP government to “prove allegations of corruption against the previous regime”.
However, following protests by the Contractors’ Association, a part of the pending bills has been cleared in Bengaluru.
Same tune
While political circles in the State are abuzz about “fund-raising” initiatives of the Congress for the upcoming five State polls, there is no evidence linking the money to the ruling party. The Congress has come down heavily on the central agencies, for the “unmissable pattern” of raids in Opposition-ruled States during any election season in the country. Mr. Siddaramaiah on Tuesday went even a step further and alleged that now that the funding from Karnataka for the BJP high command had stopped, the party was using central agencies to blackmail rich businessmen to collect money.
In April this year, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed by 14 political parties alleging misuse of central agencies by the Narendra Modi-led government to target Opposition and dissenters. This time too, the BJP said the law was merely taking its course and that the raids had no political subtext.
Little has been stated on record by the agencies and the sequence of events has put the five-month-old Congress government in Karnataka under considerable pressure, especially on the alleged corruption in transfers and clearing pending bills. This, even as the BJP, that took a severe beating in the recently concluded State polls, is yet to even elect a Leader of Opposition and JDS leader H. D. Kumaraswamy has emerged as the principal challenger to the government.
adhitya.bharadwaj@thehindu.co.in
