The Income Tax raids that occurred in the early hours of Wednesday on Karnataka Energy Minister DK Shivakumar at multiple locations across the country, have not come as a surprise for the minister as per a Times of India report.
According to party sources, he had seen it coming and was expecting the raids to happen.
While the I-T department says that the raids had been in the works for six months, Congress leaders are questioning the timing of the raids.
“The BJP is playing mind games and trying all strategies to win the assembly poll in Karnataka in 2018,“ a Congress functionary said, while adding that the BJP was trying to poach influential persons in the Congress with key resources.
Shivakumar was also reportedly asked to cross over to the BJP, as he was advised that the Congress would not reward him appropriately for his services.
“It is well known that Kumar is one of the Congress party's moneybags. The I-T raids would make any person wanting to fund the party, think twice before doing so,“ political observers said.
The raids meanwhile have led to a war of words between Congress and BJP.
The Congress has alleged that the “dirty tricks” department of the BJP was at play and called the raids a “witch hunt”.
Replying to the Congress, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the house, “No search has taken place in the resort as such and no MLA was searched, only one particular Ktka minister was searched".
The raids were carried out just after DK Shivakumar and his brother MP DK Suresh were given the task of taking care of 44 Gujarat MLAs of the Congress who have been staying at Bengaluru.
The Gujarat MLAs have been staying at the posh Eagleton Golf Village in Ramanagara, on the outskirts of Bengaluru.
This came after six party MLAs were poached by the BJP ahead of Rajya Sabha elections in the western state.