New Delhi, Aug 2 (PTI): Congress members disrupted Parliament on Wednesday as they protested the timing of income-tax raids on a Karnataka minister guarding 44 the party’s lawmakers from Gujarat at a resort near Bangalore.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley said it would be wrong to link the income-tax raids with the August 8 elections to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat.
The Congress, having already lost six of its 57 members in the Gujarat legislative assembly, has isolated 44 MLAs at the Eagleton Resort since last Saturday to prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party from getting at them and upsetting the chances of its candidate Ahmed Patel.
The income-tax department had said it had recovered Rs 7.5 crore in cash from the residence of Karnataka energy minister D.K. Shivakumar, the man overseeing the stay of the Congress MLAs.
Jaitley said income-tax officers had visited the resort only to pick up the minister so that they could record his statement, the usual procedure in tax investigations. Jaitley said the officers had searched only the minister’s room and not the resort.
Congress members accused the Narendra Modi government of using investigating agencies to further its goal of getting Patel defeated. The BJP-led ruling National Democratic Alliance is in a minority in the Rajya Sabha.
The Congress members forced three adjournments of the Rajya Sabha, and at one point walked out of the Lok Sabha.
Jaitley said the income-tax department was searching 39 places linked with the minister, but not the resort.
The income-tax department and the enforcement directorate, a finance ministry unit that deals with money laundering cases, began their raids early on Wednesday.
When the Rajya Sabha met for the day, Congress leader Anand Sharma raised the issue, saying an attempt was being made to ”derail and hijack” the elections to the Council of States and the raids were “targeted”.
”Since morning they (ED and IT) have started the raids,” Sharma said and questioned the timing and place of the raids.
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 Congress MLAs were being “kidnapped”. “This is against democracy,” he said.
Azad asked why the raids on the minister was “taking place today and not a month later or before.”
Jaitley said the properties of a ”particular” minister were 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.
In the Lok Sabha, when senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge raised the issue, Jaitley said the matter should not linked to Rajya Sabha elections from Gujarat.
“Don't link it with (the) Gujarat) MLAs, link it with economic offence,” Jaitley said.
IT officials said a total of 39 premises of the minister and his family, in Delhi and Karnataka, are being raided by a team of about 120 officials accompanied by central paramilitary forces.
The department is also investigating charges of alleged role of money power and huge transfer of illegal funds for these polls.
The department said the timing of the search was decided well in advance.
“The events involving certain MLAs of another state being brought to Karnataka were unforeseen and unpredictable events,” it said.
Six of the 57 Congress MLAs in Gujarat have resigned from the party in the last few days, and three of them joined the BJP on Friday.
The MLA are attending classes on a host of topics including “the party's achievements in the last 60 years” and ”the BJP's lies” among others, since yesterday.
