The value of the unaccounted cash seized by the Income Tax Department from the premises of Congress Rajya Sabha MP Dheeraj Sahu in Odisha and Jharkhand has crossed Rs 300 crore figure, official sources said on Saturday.
With this, the cash seizure in the raids which began on Wednesday, will make it India’s “biggest-ever” black money recovery by any agency in a single operation.
The Income Tax Department conducted simultaneous raids across three states, recovering more than ₹300 crore worth of cash from properties linked to Sahu. This is likely to be the biggest cash recovery in income tax raids so far.
The Odisha-based liquor distillery group is linked to Congress MP Dheeraj Sahu. The counting of cash, however, was still going on, as per an IT official. The raids were conducted at Boudh Distilleries Private Limited (BDPL) and entities linked to it in Odisha and Jharkhand.
It is expected that the IT raids across properties linked to the Congress leader will continue on Sunday as well. The Income Tax Department also deployed additional manpower and machines to expedite the counting of the notes seized in the raids.
Cash amounting to more than Rs 225 crore was counted on Friday, and it has been heard that by Saturday this amount has exceeded Rs 300 Crores. The money is continuously being deposited in government bank branches in Odisha. Most of the currency notes are of Rs 500 denomination.
The Income Tax Department investigators have started recording the statements of various company officials and others. Dheeraj Sahu has not given any reactions to the raids so far.
Sahu is Gandhi Family’s Blue Eyed Boy
Sahu is an old Congress politician who has come up the ladder since being associated with the NSUI at Ranchi University in 1978 and being part of the district Congress committees. How much the party values him shows in the fact that when he lost his maiden Lok Sabha election in May 2009 from the Chatra seat in Jharkhand, the party was nevertheless quick to bring him to Parliament. A month later in June 2009, he was elected as a Rajya Sabha MP by the Congress.
He was elected to the Upper House two more times and is presently in his third term since 2018. While he was in the Rajya Sabha, Congress again gave Sahu a Lok Sabha ticket from Chatra in 2014, but he lost badly by polling little over 16% votes and barely saved his deposit. So while Sahu from Lohardaga in Jharkhand may have never won a Lok Sabha or Assembly election for the Congress, he has been the party’s trusted face in the Rajya Sabha.
Congress distanced itself to prevent further shaming
The Congress on Saturday distanced itself from its Jharkhand Rajya Sabha MP Dheeraj Sahu after the recovery of a huge amount of cash from a liquor company linked to him.
“The Indian National Congress is in no way connected with the businesses of Dheeraj Sahu, MP. Only he can explain, and should explain, how huge amounts of cash have been reportedly unearthed by the income-tax authorities from his properties,” AICC general secretary Communications Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.
BJP going all guns blazing against Congress
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday assured the people that the money looted from the public will be returned.
Taking to X, the Prime Minister said, “The countrymen should look at the pile of these notes and then listen to the honest speeches’ of their leaders ..Whatever has been looted from the public, every penny will have to be returned, this is Modi’s guarantee.” The Prime Minister also tagged a Hindi newspaper where the cash recovered by the IT department was shown stacked.
The seizure of cash from some premises linked to Congress MP Dhiraj Prasad Sahu in Income Tax department raids shows how the grand old party has kept the tradition of corruption alive generation after generation, the BJP said on Saturday.
