Hyderabad: Challenging the income-tax department for serving a search and seizure notice on his wife as director of Rithwik Agri Farms as illegal, Telugu Desam Rajya Sabha member C.M. Ramesh said the action was intended to malign him politically as he had opposed the BJP government at the Centre.
“Hang me if I did any wrong, but vendetta politics bring no advantage to Modi,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He named one Madan, whom he identified as I-T deputy director, who reportedly told his staff “as long as you oppose the BJP, you face raids”. Speaking to mediapersons at the end of three days of I-T raids, Mr Ramesh said it was a “wild goose chase.”
To a query, he said that the I-T department was searching for traces on the '50 lakh with which Congress leader A. Revanth Reddy, who was then with the Telugu Desam, was caught in the cash-for-votes scam.
Mr Ramesh accused Central Board of Direct Taxes director Sushil Chandra, of working for the BJP and said that he had got extensions only because “he was serving his masters well”. Had he acted well in the Nirav Modi case, '280 crore could have been seized from his bank locker, he said.
He said the I-T department had raided his business establishments at 25 places simultaneously for three days and cash of '3,53,700, which included offerings made to gods as 'Mudupu', was recovered. The documents seized by the I-T department were only bank passbooks belonging to his wife, son and brother-in-law, Mr Ramesh said.
He said he paid '200 crore in the last four years as income-tax and the department had to refund '28 crore. “I don’t owe anything to the income-tax department,” he said.
Accusing YSRC president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy of spreading falsehoods after the I-T raids, Mr Ramesh said he was ready to undergo any kind of punishment if it was proved that “thousands of works were given to his firms by Naidu on a nomination basis”.
He said his firms did more business — he cited the example of the Dummu-gudem project tenders worth '3,000 crore — when Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu was not the Chief Minister.
Mr Ramesh said YSRC MP Mithun Reddy’s firm was doing works in excess of '2,000 crore with the Telangana state government. “What is wrong if I am in business,” he said.
Criticising Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy for running a channel which had no concern for public affairs, he said that all residences owned by the YSRC president at Hyderabad, Benga-luru and Pulivendula were in the name of benamis. “I am proud to say that my houses are in my own name at Hyderabad and Kadapa,” he said. “Do we need such a leader,” Mr Ramesh asked.
He said he had sought the holding of the next Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting at Hyderabad. Mr Ramesh is a member, and the committee is headed by MP Mallikarjuna Kharge.
