The issue of Income-Tax raids on Karnataka Minister DK Shivakumar rocked Parliament on Wednesday as the Congress charged the Central Government for “brazen” misuse of its agencies to “derail” the forthcoming Rajya Sabha polls in Gurajat. Denying the claim, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the searches were carried out to locate the Minister who had “parked” himself in the resort in Bengaluru and no other Congress MlA from Gujarat staying there was searched. While the Rajya Sabha saw repeated adjournments, Congress MPs staged a walkout in the lok Sabha.
Even as the Congress members raised doubts over the timing of the raids and charged the Government with “political vendetta”, Jaitley said the Minister, who had “gone and parked himself” at the resort, was picked up from there for questioning.
Maintaining that the searches were conducted at 39 other places and “not at the resort,” Jaitley said the searches “should not be linked to the Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat.” As the main Opposition party members in the Rajya Sabha said the Government was misusing the agencies, Jaitley said “whether it is a use or abuse, it depends on recovery”.
Raising the issue in the Upper House soon after it met for the day, Congress leader Anand Sharma said an attempt was being made to “derail and hijack” the elections to the Council of States and the raids were “targeted”. He also said the timing of the raids was “not a coincidence”.
leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said the elections to the Rajya Sabha should be held without fear in a free and fair manner. “But in this election (in Gujarat) all these three things are not happening,” he said and alleged that the Congress MlAs were being “kidnapped”. Questioning the timing of the raids, Azad asked about the urgency of raids and said the searches could have taken place a month later or earlier.
Responding to them, Jaitley said the properties of a “particular” Minister of the Karnataka Government was searched. “In that resort where your MlAs are staying, no search has taken place, no MlA has been searched. A particular individual was to be searched. He has gone and parked himself in that resort. Because they had to confront him with the recovery, they had gone to get him to his residence so that he could be adequately questioned by the authorities,” the Finance Minister said, adding that the Minister was taken to his residence from the resort. Jaitley also said the resort was not an area where the Karnataka Minister can get “immunity from the law”.
However, the Congress members were not convinced by his assertion and trooped into the Well of the House raising slogans. The proceedings were marred by slogan shouting by the Congress and Treasury Benches leading to repeated adjournments in pre and post-lunch sessions.
In the lok Sabha, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge raised the issue, but Jaitley said the matter should not be linked to the polls in Gujarat for Rajya Sabha seats. Terming the raids as “a political vendetta and witch- hunting”, Kharge charged the Government of using Central agencies and said this would “ruin the ethos of democracy”.
Rejecting his allegations as “baseless,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the raids were part of action against black money and corruption. Kumar, who also belongs to Karnataka, said the State Government had decided to slap a penalty of Rs 942 crore on the resort. At the same time, the Gujarat MlAs are lodged there, he said.
“Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Ahmed Patel should explain this. They should come out clean on this matter,” Kumar said. Both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul were present in the House earlier. The agitated Congress members later walked out.
Meanwhile, a delegation of Congress leaders comprising Kapil Sibal, Vivek Tankha, Rajiv Shukla, Manish Tewari, Randeep Surjewala and Madhu Goud met the Election Commission and sought its intervention in ensuring that no coercive steps were taken against its Gujarat MlAs in order to “force” them to switch sides. The Congress leaders have asked the EC to ensure the safety and security of its MlAs from Gujarat, ahead of the August 8 Rajya Sabha election in the State.