Hours after DK Shivakumar accused the BJP of misusing central authorities like CBI and Income Tax Department for harassing him and his associates, the CBI on Thursday announced that it is carrying out raids at five properties connected to the politician.
In a press conference called early on Thursday morning by the DK brothers, Shivakumar said, “The CBI has applied for a search warrant and at 11 am it will be granted. The warrant is against me, my brother and nine other associates.”
“The BJP central leadership has been hounding my brother and me to join their party. We have never been scared of their threats and never will be. We will fight this legally. The central agencies must keep in mind that they should not give into political pressure,” he added.
The CBI in a statement said all these raids were related to an ongoing investigation relating to demonetisation case (registered in November 2016) against the former Karnataka Energy Minister's brother and MP, DK Suresh.
These properties however do not belong to Suresh or his brother. An FIR was also registered against Corporation Bank manager B Prakash and others with regards to the case. The CBI claimed that it was during interrogation that Prakash said he was working on behalf of Suresh.
“Searches are being conducted in Bengaluru, Kanakapura and Ramanagara at the Kanakapura Taluk Office, an office at Ramanagara and three residences of the Election Cell-In-charge Sri Shivananda, Election Cell clerk Sri Nanjappa and one Shri Padmanabaiah. Sri Padmanabaiah (former PA of Shivakumar) had allegedly exchanged the SBN notes in the bank.,” the CBI said in a statement.
The CBI said that they had search warrants for 11 properties issued by the 47th Special CBI court Judge Pushpanjali Devi.
These latest raids from the CBI come after DKS got conditional bail on Rs 1 lakh personal bond and Rs 25,000 sureties by two persons from a special Economic Offences Wing Court in connection with three tax evasion cases.
The I-T raids across the country on properties owned by him and his associates incidentally came just after DK Shivakumar successfully prevented the horse-trading of 44 Gujarat MLAs ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls.
The I-T raids came after the Department reportedly found torn notes suggesting crores of rupees of unaccounted financial dealings at the posh Eagleton resort where the Gujarat MLAs were housed.
The Congress has maintained that this was nothing but political vendetta by the BJP-ruled Centre.