INDIA. Mumbai: The Income Tax department raided over 20 locations linked to Samajwadi Party (Maharashtra) President Abu Asim Azmi’s close aide, Abha Ganesh Gupta, in connection with alleged benami property investments, tax evasion, and black money, on Tuesday.
The raids were conducted at Kamal Mansion in Colaba, South Mumbai, where offices of Abu Asim Azmi and Abha Ganesh Gupta are located. Besides, official sources said that the raids were conducted at other locations across Mumbai, Varanasi, Kanpur, Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, and Kolkata in West Bengal.
Abha Ganesh Gupta (wife of the late Ganesh Gupta) was the Secretary of SP (Maharashtra). The I-T department also raided Vinayak Nirman Ltd, one of the companies in Varanasi where Abha Gupta has reportedly made huge benami investments.
The premises in Kolkata were raided in connection with alleged hawala deals. Vinayak Real Estate and the readymade garments unit in Varanasi were also raided.
Per an affidavit submitted to the Election Commission during the 2019 Maharashtra Legislative elections, Azmi had shown his property worth Rs 209 crore and mentioned that 11 offenses were registered against him.
Co-incidentally, Abu Azmi, while addressing a public meeting in Amravati in Maharashtra on Tuesday, had criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that he had promised to bring back black money staked in foreign banks and deposit Rs 15 lakh in the bank account of every Indian, but nothing happened.
“Modi was to make available two crore jobs for unemployed people across the country. On the contrary, the unemployment rate went up. Modi was trying to sell the country, and he could be at best described as ‘Mr. Natwarlal,'” Azami said.
Usually, a conman is addressed as “Natwarlal” since an Indian fraudster, Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava, was known for his high-profile crimes and prison escapes. He had repeatedly “sold” the Taj Mahal (monument in Agra in Uttar Pradesh), the Red Fort, the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Parliament House of India located in New Delhi. He passed away in 2009.
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