The premises of several perfume traders, including Samajwadi Party MLA Pushpraj Jain in Kannauj, were raided by officers of the Income Tax department on Friday. Jain is the maker of ‘Samajwadi ittra (perfume)’ that was recently launched by party president Akhilesh Yadav.
The I-T department said searches were underway in Kannauj, Kanpur, the national capital region, Surat, Mumbai and a few other places, and about 20 premises were being covered as part of the raid.
The SP said the I-T department that it termed as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) dear ally has finally raided premises of the SP MLC and other perfume traders in Kannauj after the major failure of the last time. Taking to Twitter, the party said, “The scared BJP leadership is openly misusing the central agencies… People are watching, will answer through their votes.”
An ANI report said Yadav will hold a press conference at the SP office in Kannauj at 12:30pm.
It further said the action was launched after the department obtained details from the Goods and Service Tax (GST) department about possible income tax evasion by perfume business entities and others by allegedly claiming bogus input tax credit.
The latest raids come days after the I-T sleuths arrested perfume trader Peeyush Jain following massive seizure of cash worth crores, besides gold and a huge quantity of sandalwood oil.
Soon after, the raid and recovery of cash have triggered a war of words between political parties in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. The BJP has said the arrested is a close ally of Yadav, while the latter has said the ruling camp has got one of its own arrested by mistake.
During a rally in Kanpur, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the perfume of corruption that the Samajwadi Party had sprinkled all over Uttar Pradesh before 2017 was for all to see.
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