The purported record of Nostradamus faces stiff competition in Bengal.

The income tax department on Wednesday searched the home, office and factories of Raiganj MLA Krishna Kalyani. Kalyani was elected on a BJP ticket but now he is in the Trinamul Congress.

Business as usual in contemporary India but for an allegation. A little over a year ago, Kalyani had alleged that Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari, who switched to the BJP from Trinamul before the Assembly elections, had threatened him in the House with such raids.

Kalyani had said on March 16 last year: “He threatened me directly in front of everybody, that ‘Mr Kalyani, I will send income tax to your place tomorrow itself, you will see what happens’.”

He was then accompanied by three other BJP MLAs — Biswajit Das, Soumen Roy and Tanmoy Ghosh — who had defected to the ruling party.

In response to a question on the alleged threat issuedon March 16, 2022, Adhikari said on Wednesday: “Would you be able to furnish a document as evidence that I had said so?”

The leader of the Opposition, who himself had been probed by the CBI for his alleged involvement in the Saradha and Narada cases till his defection to the BJP, is no stranger to such allegations.

On March 10 this year, Adhikari was heard sayingon the floor of the House that he would put irrigation minister Partha Bhowmick behind bars within a month. Adhikari did not mention prison but said “bhitorey dhukiye debo”, which in such a context would imply “will have you incarcerated”.

The Speaker took cognisance of the matter and placed the remarks on record. Bhowmick had also brought a privilege motion against Adhikari and filed a police complaint.

In March last year, Kalyani had complained to the Speaker. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had said that the remark proved who controlled the supposedly autonomous central agencies.

The four lawmakers had later brought a privilege motion against Adhikari, which was accepted by the Speaker and sent to the privilege committee.

After Kalyani’s defection, he was made chairman ofthe Public Accounts Committee of the Assembly. He replaced another BJP lawmaker, Mukul Roy, whose current political status is a bit ambiguous.

A few months ago, the Enforcement Directorate had sent a letter to Kalyani, seeking information about certain advertisements that one of his companies had aired on two television channels. The MLA had acknowledged receipt of the letter and said the ED wanted to know whether all necessary formalities were fulfilled for providing the advertisements.

Reacting to the IT probe, Trinamul state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said it was too much of a coincidence.

“It follows a fairly steady pattern nowadays. The likes of him predict the names, dates and nature of the action by central agencies. The predictions turn out to be spot on…,” Ghosh said although the alleged prophesy this time took over a year to come true.