The Income Tax department has reportedly raided 22 locations in Delhi and Gurugram Raids on companies associated with former Bihar chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav. Along with Lalu Prasad Yadav, the raids are being conducted on several others in connection with benami land deals worth 1,000 crore.
As per a report in News18, the department began its raids on the houses of some prominent businessmen and real estate agents early in the morning. The report also said that searches are being conducted at the premises of the son of RJD MP PC Gupta and few other businessmen. A team of nearly 100 tax department officials and police personnel are carrying out the raids.
“People and businessmen connected to the land deal involving Lalu Prasad and his family are being searched. There are allegations of benami deals worth about Rs 1,000 crore and subsequent tax evasion,” a senior official told PTI.
The raids come just a few days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Prasad, his daughter Misa Bharti and his two sons, both Bihar government ministers, of involvement in corrupt land deals worth over Rs 1,000 crore. The BJP leaders had urged the Central government to probe one such transaction in Delhi. “The politics of Lalu Prasad has become politics of loot. Land worth crores of rupees was grabbed for a pittance. One such land deal involving Lalu Prasad and his family members is in Bijwasan in Delhi,” Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had alleged.
The RJD chief is already under the scanner in the fodder scam case in which the Supreme Court has revived the charges of criminal conspiracy against him. A two-judge bench had ruled that the trial should be completed within nine months. The fodder scam pertains to the time when Lalu was the Bihar chief minister between 1990 to 1997.
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