Bengaluru: After being grilled by Income Tax detectives for three consecutive days in connection with an alleged tax evasion case, Karnataka Minister Shivakumar said on Saturday he did not violate the law and Truth will finally come out.
The IT department began its investigations into several properties linked to Shivakumar, which houses 44 deputies from the Gujarat Congress at a resort on the outskirts of the city on Wednesday to avoid alleged attempts by the Bharatiya Janata (BJP) party. Them before the Rajya Sabha polls.
Ahmed Patel, the political secretary to the head of the Congress Sonia Gandhi, is locked in a bitter struggle in the elections.
“I am not the kind of person who violates the law and the Constitution … the truth will come out,” he said after leaving his residence in an elegant town in Bengaluru.
Without divulging details on the searches made in several properties related to him, the minister of the Power said: “Only after receiving all the panch Nama and the documentation I will speak to you”.
During searches at around 66 locations across the country in connection with an alleged tax evasion case, IT officials said they have confiscated cash and jewelry worth Rs 15 crore so far.
Shivakumar, which comes from the community of Vokkaliga, has a considerable influence in the rural Bengaluru districts and the neighbors of Ramanagara.
He is also the head of the congressional propaganda committee ahead of the 2018 Assembly polls.
The 55-year-old minister, considered a clever trouble shooter for Congress with proximity to the party high command, is a six-time MLA.
Thanking the party and its leadership for backing it, Shivakumar said: “All my leaders across the country have been at my side in the crisis … I do not want to embarrass my party and I will not do it.”
“At no point in time will I let my leaders and my party,” he added.
Despite repeated media questions about the raids, Shivakumar said he would discuss it in detail later. “I’ll talk to you later. I’m going to a temple, then I’m going to the resort where the MLAs are staying,” he said.
“Things have been discussed, deliberated on several levels … I do not want to tell anything now,” he added.
When asked if IT searches were complete, Shivakumar said: “You saw the officials leave.” “I do not know,” he said when asked about incursions elsewhere.
“I have to know that (raids) have occurred in 70 or 80 places only through you … Please find out for yourself,” he said.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Siddaramaiah in a statement had alleged that the IT department’s action was an attempt to silence the voice against the BJP.
On Friday he had called IT incursions against Shivakumar as a “politically motivated” movement in part of the Center.
The Karnataka government has expressed its “strong protest” to the Center over the use of Central Reserve Police (CRPF) personnel during searches, saying it has ruined state police.
The incursions at the resort last August 2 triggered a major political strike with Parliament disrupted and Congress called it an “unprecedented witch hunt” to win a seat of Rajya Sabha.
