Sitting Congress MLA B Shivanna from Anekal (Bengaluru Urban) constituency who is set to contest the May 12 polls from the same seat was raided by Income Tax sleuths on Monday.

There has been no official confirmation from the I-T Department yet on the findings.

The raid comes incidentally a day after the ruling Congress announced its first list of candidates for the upcoming elections.  The MLA could not be reached for a comment.

According to preliminary reports, the MLA’s office and residences were raided by I-T sleuths.

In March, Congress MLC Raghu Achar had also faced raids by the I-T Department.  MLC Raghu is known to be a close aide of KPCC President G Parameshwara.

The Congress in the state has maintained that the BJP-ruled centre was misusing central agencies to carry out political vendetta.

It all started with raids carried out by the I-T Department in properties across the country owned by Energy Minister DK Shivakumar and his associates.

The raids became contentious due to its timing.

The raids were in August, 2017 just after Shivakumar was credited with keeping a flock of Congress MLAs from Gujarat in a resort to stop them from being poached by BJP ahead of Rajya Sabha polls.

Minister Sivakumar who is incidentally the richest among state ministers had secured bail in March with regards to the I-T Department cases against him.

I-T Department said that they had conducted the raids based on torn notes found on Shivakumar which suggested crores of rupees of unaccounted transactions at the Eagleton resort where the Gujarat MLAs were housed.

The I-T officials had claimed that the raids had nothing to do with the Gujarat Rajya Sabha polls but rather a continuation of ongoing investigations.