Jaipur: At a time when the Congress is wading through quite the political crisis in Rajasthan, the Enforcement Directorate has gone after Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s son Vaibhav over an investment deal struck between his business partner and a Mauritius investor.
A hotel in Jaipur, run by Vaibhav’s partner R.K. Sharma, had been on the ED’s radar over a Rs 96-crore investment in it by a Mauritius firm. The ED has said that this deal is a possible case of “round-tripping.”
Round tripping refers to money that leaves the country though various channels and makes its way back as foreign investment.
According to sources in the agency, the hotel records with the Registrar of Companies have been scanned and the preliminary probe into the hotel’s shareholding pattern and Vaibhav’s deal with Sharma has revealed that shares that were originally allotted for Rs 10 each, were later allotted to an “investor” from Mauritius for around Rs 40,000 per share.
For this, the ED has already summoned Sharma and others involved in the business, and is now planning to question Vaibhav too.
Vaibhav Gehlot. Photo: Twitter/@@VaibhavGehlot80
On Monday, the Income Tax Department conducted raids at properties of two close aides of chief minister Ashok Gehlot in Jaipur.
They are identified as Dharmendra Rathore and Rajiv Arora. Rathore is a former chairman of the Rajasthan seeds corporation while Arora is vice president of the Congress and owner of Amrapali jewels.
Sources say that the raids were based on complaints of tax evasion and were being conducted at Delhi and Mumbai as well.
The Congress said that the raids are an attempt by the BJP to topple the ruling Congress government. “The Income Tax department, Enforcement Directorate and CBI are all ‘frontal departments’ of the BJP, their raids cannot topple Rajasthan government,” said Surjewala.
The department later claimed that it had gathered incriminating documents and digital records which show mass trading in cash.
Earlier in Manipur, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had summoned former chief minister and Congress leader Okram Ibobi Singh at a time when he was leading the move to replace the BJP-led coalition government in Manipur.
Also read: Manipur: As Ibobi Singh Leads Move to Topple BJP Govt, CBI Summons Former CM in Corruption Case
He was questioned for allegedly misappropriating state government funds worth Rs 332 crore during his regime.
Similarly, in Karnataka, the Enforcement Directorate went after Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar for playing a crucial role in the formation of the coalition government in the state after the 2018 polls.
Shivakumar had said that the ED case against him was an expression of BJP’s politics.
“The IT and ED cases against me are politically motivated and I am a victim of BJP’s politics of vengeance and vendetta,” he had tweeted.