New Delhi: The Income Tax Department on Tuesday conducted raids at the offices and residences of close aides of Shiv Sena leaders and Maharashtra ministers Aaditya Thackeray and Anil Parab. The raids were conducted in Mumbai and Pune, ANI reported.
Before this, the IT Dept had conducted raids at the offices and premises of various BMC contractors and Shiv Sena leaders.
Last month, the Income Tax Department raided premises linked to a prominent Shiv Sena corporator and his MLA wife (corporator Yashwant Jadhav and his wife Yamini Jadhav) for alleged tax evasion.
When asked about the raids, Aaditya Thackeray, who heads the environment and tourism departments, said central agencies were being used as a publicity machinery of the BJP and misused in other parts of the country too.
"Central agencies (have been) misused in the past too – it happened in Bengal, Andhra Pradesh – and now, it is happening in Maharashtra. Central agencies have in a way become publicity machinery of BJP itself. Maharashtra will not bow down," ANI quoted the MLA from Mumbai as saying.
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut called the move a tactic to pressurise and destablise the MVA government in Maharashtra. Raut also called the ED "ATM of BJP".
"Why are central agencies targetting a selected few from states like West Bengal and Maharashtra...don't they get anybody else from other states, it's a tactic to pressurise and destablise MVA government," ANI quoted Sanjay Raut as saying.
"Some ED officials are contesting elections on BJP tickets, ED has become ATM of BJP and I have given records of extortion by these officers to the PM. Nexus of ED officers are extorting contractors, developers and builders," he further said.
The Sena leader also said the Mumbai Police would investigate the criminal syndicate and extortion racket run by a nexus of ED officials. "Mark my words, some of these ED officers will go to jail too," he said.