I-T focus on 150 new accounts at BJP minister’s bank

Bhopal: Income-Tax raids at a private bank owned by family of a senior BJP leader here have led to disclosure that over 150 new accounts have been opened post demonetisation to redeem scrapped notes.

I-T sleuths said new accounts were opened without Aaadhar cards in Mahanagar cooperative bank, promoted by family of BJP leader Sushil Vaswani , raising suspicions on their operations.

Huge transactions such as deposition and notes-exchange, have been conducted in these accounts.

“Transactions in these accounts ran to several crores of rupees. The unusually high transactions in the bank after November 8,” a senior IT officer told this newspaper requesting anonymity.

Sources indicated that many influential people in Madhya Pradesh may have parked their “unaccounted” money in scrapped notes in the bank.

State revenue minister Uma Shankar Gupta is one of the board of directors at the bank. “It is not a raid but a survey being conducted by us in the bank,” one of the members in the raiding party observed cautiously.

The development has caused huge embarrassment to the state BJP government with Opposition Congress questioning the government how the BJP leader has amassed such huge properties.

In another development, principal chief income tax commissioner, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Abrar Ahmed on Thursday said around 400 accounts in these states recording abnormal cash deposits post demonetization, are under I-T radar.

“Notices have been issued to these account holders to explain the deposits,” he told reporters here.