After hounding him for around two years, the Income Tax Department has given a clean chit to former BJP president Nitin Gadkari by declaring through an RTI reply that “no investigation” is pending against him. Reacting to the development, the BJP demanded that there should be a probe into the misuse of Government machinery to malign Gadkari.
“With the department stating that no inquiry was in progress against Gadkari, it is now clear that the news reports against him were false and that the ruling party indulged in politics of vendetta against him,” said BJP’s Maharashtra spokesperson Madhav Bhandari.
“An inquiry should be held to ascertain who misused the Government machinery to indulge in this politics of vendetta against Gadkari,” Bhandari said. The BJP leader added that the clarification by the I-T department also proves that no inquiry was conducted against Gadkari in the past.
Bhandari’s statement comes in light of the reply by the Directorate of Income Tax (investigation), Nagpur, to a query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act that “there is no inquiry/investigation presently pending in this directorate against Nitin Gadkari of Nagpur”. RTI activist Sumit Dalal of Delhi had filed an application under the RTI Act, 2005, seeking details of the Income Tax cases, if any, pending against Gadkari.
Gadkari plunged into controversies few weeks before he was about to appoint as BJP president for the second term in December 2012. Series of reports appeared in certain media and continued coverage in certain TV channels alleging on the irregularities in the business group - Purti Group -- earlier headed by Gadkari. A day before, he was about to select for the BJP’s president, Income Tax Department served him notice. According to his supporters, this was ploy to sabotage his political career.
“The timing of this malicious and sinister campaign, mounted through a motivated high-voltage media blitz, was part of a conspiracy to tarnish my image,” Gadkari then maintained, after announcing his resignation from the post of BJP president. “Truth Shall Prevail!!! And it has!!! But does an honest, straightforward, sincere individual deserve this just because he is a politicianIJ...I thank everybody who stood by me and supported me,” Gadkari tweeted in the evening.