UP war hots up: BJP claims to be on scent of corrupt, SP cries foul

It’s not BJP money, says FM on Rs 200 cr seized from bizman Piyush Jain

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BJP misusing Central agencies: SP

BQ: The raids on Friday were done out of frustration to set right the earlier mistake, wherein a BJP supporter (Piyush) was mistaken for an SP man,” Akhilesh Yadav, SP chief

BOX: Shah slams SP over Ayodhya

Home Minister Amit Shah targeted the SP over its role in the Ayodhya movement, asking why ‘Ram Lalla’ had to stay in a tent for so many years and why did the SP government “open fire on kar sevaks”.

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 31

A massive war of words erupted today in the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh following the IT raids on Samajwadi Party leader and perfume maker Pushpraj Jain in Kannauj.

While the Samajwadi Party is accusing the ruling BJP of “misusing” Central agencies, saffron party leaders are using the development to take a swipe at Akhilesh Yadav, their main rival in the state.

Home Minister Amit Shah, who was in Ayodhya to take stock of the ongoing work at Ram Temple, said the stench of the Samajwadi perfume had spread all over UP. “They (SP) are getting worried over the raids,” Shah said addressing a public rally. Throwing a question at the audience, he asked: “Do you have any issues if people with black money are being raided?”

Akhilesh Yadav had recently launched a perfume called “Samajwadi Itra” prepared by Pushpraj Jain, whose premises were raided today.

Completely backing Pushpraj Jain, the Samajwadi Party is claiming that the BJP has gone after the “real target” after “mistakenly” raiding “their own man” Piyush Jain a couple of days ago.

“Today’s raids were done out of frustration to set right the earlier mistake, wherein a BJP supporter (Piyush) was mistaken for an SP man,” said Akhilesh, dubbing the action as an “open misuse of Central agencies by a scared BJP”.

However, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the nearly Rs 200- crore cash recovered from Piyush was not BJP money. She also defended the timing of the tax raids, saying law-enforcing agencies act on actionable intelligence. “It is not BJP money,” she told reporters when confronted with the allegation that the Rs 197.49-crore cash recovered from Piyush was BJP money and the tax authorities had raided him by “mistake” and were now targeting Pushpraj, their “original target”.

She rejected the Opposition charge that the wrong Jain was raided, saying, “How do they know whose money is it? Are they partners (with him)?… Only if you are running a business in partnership with someone would you know.”

Dismissing the charge of the raids being “politically motivated”, she asked if the raiding parties returned empty-handed.

The Income Tax Department today raided multiple premises linked to perfume traders and some other businesses in Uttar Pradesh as part of a tax-evasion investigation.