New Delhi: The Income Tax Department has summoned Congress party treasurer Ahmed Patel, in a case about alleged undeclared party collections and election expenses of over Rs 550 crore. The department had earlier issued summons to the party.
Patel told Indian Express that he will be responding to the summons “soon”, and has not done so yet because he’s been busy with parliamentary work and was unwell. “Such contributions are received by every political party and I will respond to the summons soon, probably after the upcoming Parliament session,” he said.
The summons have been issued under Section 131 of the I-T Act, for alleged violations of Section 13A.
In April 2019, the newspaper says, the I-T department had searched 52 locations in Madhya Pradesh in the case. More search operations were carried out in October 2019 and February 2020, including in Hyderabad and Vijaywada.
Ministry of Finance officials told Indian Express that the summons were sent directly to Patel because earlier, the party had sent only junior officials to speak to the investigators. The scale of the alleged offence had since increased because of the new searchers, they said, and so the party treasurer was contacted.
As part of a pre-election probe last year, the I-T department had claimed that Madhya Pradesh government departments were giving cash donations to the Congress, so that they could be used to campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Rs 20 crore in case was also moved from Kamal Nath’s residence to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters, the department said.