Finish off the fund-raiser, win a poll!
D.K. Shivakumar in knots, with a series of raids on his houses and properties across the nation including New Delhi and Bengaluru.
Bengaluru/New Delhi: To win a poll, choke the fund raiser. That seems to be the clever strategy adopted by the BJP national leadership, which has tied up the Congress party's main fund raiser and energy minister D.K. Shivakumar in knots, with a series of raids on his houses and properties across the nation including New Delhi and Bengaluru. It is a well known fact that Mr Shivakumar, whose worth runs into hundreds of crores, was the fundraiser for the Congress party in Assembly polls held in Kerala, Assam and Bihar.
The Income tax department which is conducting the raids, is yet to come out with the exact amount of cash, valuables and properties seized from Mr Shivakumar. Sources said the total value could be around Rs 15 crore-Rs 11.43 crore in cash and 4.4. crore in jewellery. It would be only a fraction of the wealth of the Congress strongman but serious damage has been inflicted on his potential to keep funding party poll campaigns. It remains to be seen if DK, as he is popularly known, will be able to wield his enormous clout and win the 2018 Karnataka Assembly polls forthe Congress like he did in the Nanjangud and Gundlupet elections, where his moneypower swept the BJP away.
Ironically, it was the Congress in Karnataka which shaped this strategy to perfection before the Assembly 2013 polls. The party ensured that mining baron and BJP moneybag, Gali Janardhan Reddy, was trapped in a multitude of cases and was safely tucked away in prison, keeping him and huge cash stash out of the Karnataka polls. The Congress swept the polls.
Meanwhile, IT sleuths said they had seized hundreds of documents related to the minister's business and other financial transactions that raised uncomfortable questions about his business enterprises. In Delhi, IT officials raided four places, including an address in Safdarjung Enclave and another at R.K. Puram in Delhi, said sources. The minister claimed he knew nothing about the cash and that the house in Delhi did not belong to him.
There is suspicion that the minister may have allegedly bought property through a benami route in the city. IT department is looking into benami transactions and may book the minister under the Benami Transactions (Prohibtion) Act.