Hyderabad/Khammam: Eighteen teams from the Income-tax department raided 15 properties of TRS Member of Parliament from Khammam, Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, located across Hyderabad and the Khammam district of AP. The raids were carried out at the residence, office and factories owned by Mr Reddy. The I-T department suspects large scale tax evasion by the business man turned politician whose infrastructure companies have bagged major government contracts.
The companies are owned by the MP and his brother. They have won government contracts for projects such as Mission Bhagiratha, Mission Kakatiya, the road development project of TS and others multi-crore projects.
Simultaneous raids were held in Hyderabad, Khammam, Sattupalli, Aswaraopet and Narayanapuram.
“In total 15 places were raided including the office of subcontractors who bagged government contracts through the MP’s companies. The searches were carried out early Tuesday morning. No employees were available for questioning; they came in to the office towards evening, and the process of statement recording has thus been delayed,” the sources said. The raids will continue on Wednesday. So far no cash or documents have been seized.
The teams searched Mr Reddy’s house in Jubilee Hills, his Raghava Infra office at Banjara Hills, camp office in Khammam, and his native place in Narayanapuram in Kallur mandal. The house of a sub-contracor J. Ramesh in Aswaraopet, and the residences of T. Ganesh and Vangara Rakesh, sub-contractors in Sattupalli and Khammam district were also searched. Srinivasa Reddy, who set up Raghava Constructions two decades ago, has built many road and irrigation projects. The MP’s company is the main contractor for the Nagarjunasagar Left Canal modernisation packages.
Relatives of the MP were surprised to see IT officials on their doorstep.
Mr Reddy said that there is no reason for the raids and they were routine. “IT officials raid the offices and houses of businessmen and contractors once in five years to check the IT statements submitted by the company by conducting such roads,” he said. He said that there is no political motive behind the raids and added that his company auditors will explain all the doubts raised by the IT department.
