The Income Tax Department on Wednesday conducted searches on the premises of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MlA Kartar Singh Tanwar on charges of alleged tax evasion, drawing angry reaction from the AAP which accused the Modi Government of targeting its MlAs out of “political vendetta”.
The IT officials said the searches are being carried out on at least three premises of the Chhatarpur MlA in the national Capital by teams having 40 Income Tax and police officials. The officials said the department had received “actionable inputs” with regard to the MlA’s transactions and hence the operation was launched. The party termed the development as “political vendetta” by the Centre against AAP MlAs.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said, “Modiji, you deploy, the CBI, the Delhi Police, IB, ED and Income Tax, but we will keep on with our work.” Senior AAP leader Ashutosh said Singh’s residence was gheraoed as if Singh was a terrorist. He also accused the Delhi Police of “misbehaving” with arrested AAP MlA Amanatullah Khan’s wife.
Eleven AAP MlAs have been arrested in different cases since the party came to power in Delhi for a second time in February last year.
The Delhi Police had on Sunday arrested Okhla MlA Khan in connection with allegations by a woman that he had tried to mow her down with his car while Mehrauli MlA Naresh Yadav was arrested by the Punjab Police in connection with the alleged Malerkotla sacrilege incident.
AAP’s Raghav Chahda said it is only his party MlAs and leaders who are facing action while tainted leaders of other parties were going scot-free. “There are several cases where the BJP leader were involved in several cases, but they were not even summoned by police. When it comes to our (AAP) MlAs and leaders, they are immediately arrested. NDMC vice-chairman Karan Singh Tanwar was never arrested by the Delhi Police in the MM Khan murder case while RP Singh, a former BJP MlA who was accused of assaulting a DJB engineer, was never summoned,” Chadha said.
He claimed, “Of the 78 Ministers in the Modi Government Cabinet, 14 face criminal charges. Of the 282 BJP MPs, 98 have criminal charges.”