In yet another raid on businessmen close to Samajwadi Party leaders, a joint team of Goods and Services Tax (GST) and Income Tax departments raided a flour mill owned by SP leader Tariq Seth at Kamalganj in Farrukhabad on Wednesday.
The raid comes close on the heels of a GST team raiding a perfume trader and SP MLC Pushpraj Jain and raids at the Lucknow residence of close associates of Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav.
On December 31, income tax officials had conducted multi-state searches in connection with perfume traders, including SP leader Pushpraj Jain. He is the same perfume trader whose name was referred to by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, saying that the Central agencies had mistakenly conducted raids on the wrong perfume trader, while taking a dig at the IT raids on Kanpur-based businessman Piyush Jain.
The IT had also raided several premises of a real estate developer Ajay Chaudhary at Noida, Agra and other locations on Monday.
Perfumer and SP MLC Pushpraj Jain had launched 'Samajwadi Ittra' (Samajwadi Perfume) in October last year along with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, as a part of the party's political campaign. The Income Tax Department had conducted multiple raids at 50 locations linked to perfume traders in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Mumbai. The income tax searches came ahead of the UP assembly polls, at a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party has been continuously targeting Samajwadi Party for propagating corruption during their regime in UP.
On its part, the Samajwadi Party, has termed the raid as another instance of political vendetta unleashed by the ruling BJP against its political opponents.
"As soon as party president Akhilesh Yadav addressed the press conference in Kannauj, the Central agencies started carrying out raids at the premises of SP MLC Pampi Jain. The BJP's fear and anger are clear, People are ready to teach a lesson to the BJP." said a SP leader.
Samajwadi Party sources said several other perfume traders in Kannauj were also being raided by the I-T Department.
The raids carried out by Central agencies earlier at perfume trader Piyush Jain’s premises at Kannauj and Kanpur led to the biggest seizure in the history of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), where Rs 197 core in cash was found at his residence. Apart from huge cash, the Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI) recovered 25 kg gold and 250 kg silver along with 600 kg sandalwood and finished products (perfumes) worth crores of rupees from Jain's premises in Kanpur and from his factory at Kannauj.