Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax department Poonam Rai, her husband BJP leader Ganesh Malviya, their assistant Sanjay Rawat and CA Pritam Chotrani who were arrested on the charge of accepting bribe of Rs 10 lakh, were produced in the court on Saturday and they have been handed over to the CBI custody till April 1.
The CBI had on Friday night arrested IT official and her husband on the charge of accepting bribe of Rs 10 lakh in cash. A complaint in regard was filed by another BJP leader Rajesh Singh Bhadoriya, also a builder. The bribe was demanded for reducing the tax assessment of Ramayan Constructions.
On Saturday, while talking to media persons, Bhadoriya has claimed that the dealing regarding the bribe was finalised at the State BJP headquarters.
The incident clearly suggests that the internal feud of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh has reached to such an extent that its leaders do not even hesitate put on party reputation at stake.
IT official Poonam Rai’s husband Ganesh Malviya is National Co-Convener of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Election, while the complainant Bhadotiya is convenor of Culture cell of the party. Bhadoriya owns Ramayana Constructions, and the Indian revenue Services (IRS) officer had allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 25 lakh from him to correct discrepancies in the company’s I-T returns.
The CBI action has created flutters in the state BJP due to direct involvement of its two big leaders. The central agency on Complaint of Bhadoriya laid a trap and caught a person, who works with Malviya and had taken Rs 10 lakh from the developer as part of the bribe money, from a Chartered Accountant’s office in MP Nagar area. A CBI team accompanied the person to Malviya’s residence, from where the BJP leader was apprehended.
The team then questioned Rai till midnight and later put her under arrest, the sources said.Sources close to the BJP informed that the tiff between the two leaders of the party happened over the issue of threat of leveling heavy duty penalty on Bhadoriya’s firm by Malviya’s wife, who happened to be top IT official.
The incident came to fore at a time when the electioneering for the general elections is at its peak and the BJP if fighting the elections on the plank of development and curbing corruption.