Income Tax dept searches premises belonging to Rajasthan minister Rajendra Yadav

Jaipur/New Delhi, September 7

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Rajasthan minister Rajendra Yadav said the Income Tax department conducted raids on Wednesday on multiple premises belonging to him and his family.

Income Tax department sources said the searches are being conducted as part of a tax-evasion investigation.

The searches are being carried out in state capital Jaipur and at some locations in Uttarakhand.

“The Income Tax department is conducting raids on business premises and residences in Kotputli and Uttarakhand. Reasons are not known,” the minister of state for home said.

Yadav, the Congress MLA from Kotputli constituency, and his family are in the business of manufacturing bags for fertilisers, grains, and cement. They are also in food business such as flour and pulses.

“Raids are being conducted at five to six places. We do not mind (officers) doing the search because we do clean businesses. If the central government feels something is wrong, then let them do it. I know this much that we are with the truth,” the Congress MLA told reporters at his civil lines residence here.

He said he was not told anything about the raids.

“When we asked them (officers), they said the search had to be done, the (Central) government had sent them,” he said.

Yadav said his family had been in business for 72-74 years. He said they run a clean business, having no role in any political funding.

“It is our ancestral business,” he said. “My father was in the business from 1950. I have been doing it before I entered politics and both my sons are also engaged in the business. We are into the production line and supply materials to companies. This should not be associated with things like political funding.”

When asked if he saw any political reasons behind the raids as they come just months before assembly elections, the minister said, “I have faced many ups and downs in life. If there is anything like this, we will face it.”