New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday, November 10, raided premises linked to Telangana minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leader Gangula Kamalakar as part of a money laundering probe related to an alleged granite scam, official sources said.
They said locations linked to the minister and some others in Karimnagar district, adjoining towns and the state capital Hyderabad were being searched.
The ED case of money laundering stems from a first information report (FIR) of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which was filed to probe alleged irregularities in the granite trade in the state.
Kamalakar (54) is the minister for Backward Classes’ welfare, food and civil supplies in the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government led by chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. He is the MLA from the Karimnagar assembly seat. The legislator was in Dubai when the raids took place, according to NDTV.
“I have been in the business for 32 years. I have always worked within the purview of the law. No one is beyond the law. I will cooperate, that is why I returned within 12 hours of flying to Dubai,” Kamalakar told the news outlet.
The ED raids against Kamalakar come at a time when both TRS and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state have been trading the choicest barbs over several political issues. Both parties are engaged in a bitter verbal duel over the last few weeks after the Cyberabad Police arrested three persons allegedly linked to the BJP trying to lure four TRS MLAs to join the saffron party in exchange for money, contracts and positions.
Chief minister KCR himself has recently released a purported video of the conversation between the BJP “agents” and the TRS MLAs in question, claiming it to be an incriminating piece of evidence. he said that the BJP’s top leaders, including Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, among others, were involved in the alleged poaching of MLAs.
The TRS, for long, has been daring the BJP-led Union government to send ED and other central agencies to launch a probe against its leaders. The TRS, like other opposition parties, in the country has accused the Modi government of “misusing” investigative agencies to meet the political ends of the BJP.
The raids also come close on the heels of the TRS’s win in the hotly contested Munugode by-poll over the BJP.
(With PTI inputs)