Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Dec 28: A huge political controversy has broken out over the raids by central agencies on the perfume dealer in Uttar Pradesh with the two principal political rivals, the BJP and the Samajwadi Party, accusing each other of “sponsoring corruption.”
While the authorities denied the SP allegation that the raids on Piyush Jain, the Kanpur-based perfume dealer, to be a case of mistaken identity, the BJP maintained that the dealer was financing the SP while the former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav claimed that the huge pile of black money unearthed from Jain’s residences were meant to be used for the BJP election campaign. “The truth will come out in time,” Yadav claimed.
The official sources said the raid on Piyush Jain was not a case of mistaken identity as alleged by Yadav. The agency was investigating GST evasions leading to the unearthing of heaps of unaccounted cash from his premises that made national headlines. Sources in the probe agency said the raid was a result of a focused investigation based on specific inputs.
This comes amid a fog of speculation surrounding the huge haul at the Kanpur and Kannauj premises of Piyush Jain, which led to the recovery of ₹ 196 crores in cash and 23 kg gold. The reports said the walls, false ceilings, hidden basements and every other corners of his houses in Kanpur and Kannauj were found stacked with unaccounted cash and gold bars.
Coming in the middle of a high-pitch election campaign, the raids have entered political speeches, with the BJP and Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party accusing each other of backing the jailed perfume trader.
The BJP has alleged that it was Piyush Jain who recently launched the “Samajwadi perfume.” Taking a swipe at the opposition party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Kanpur on Tuesday, “Boxes filled with notes have come out. The people of Kanpur understand business and trade well. Before 2017, the perfume of corruption that they had sprinkled all over Uttar Pradesh is there for everyone to see.”
Hitting back, Yadav has said the BJP had mixed up businessman Piyush Jain with Samajwadi Party’s Pushpraj Jain, who launched the perfume named after the party. Denying any link with Piyush Jain, he said the BJP got “its own businessman raided by mistake.”
Following Yadav’s response, Congress leader P Chidambaram took to Twitter and wondered if the haul was a ‘comedy of errors.’ “I suppose the comedy will not end here. As more accusations are traded between BJP and SP, more characters will emerge,” he said.
Pushpraj Jain has told the media that he has no links with Piyush Jain and that he was “saddened by the low level of politics”. “It is below the belt to use my name in relation to the raids,” he said. Asked about Chidambaram’s tweet, Jain said, “He may be right, the raids may have been planned for me.”
Sources from the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), however, junked the mistaken identity theory. They have said they received specific inputs regarding alleged tax evasion by the Shikhar Pan Masala group. A probe led them to transport company Ganapati Road Carriers and Piyush Jain’s Odochem Industries, the sources said. Piyush Jain supplied perfumery compounds to the Shikhar group and came under the scanner for taking payments only in cash, the sources said, reiterating that it was not a case of mistaken identity.
The SP sources, however, pointed out that if it was not a case of mistaken identity, the prime minister would not have identified the businessman with the “Samajwadi Party perfume maker.” Yadav told the media that Modi apparently was scoring a self-goal and the central agencies carried out the raids without realizing that they were hitting out the ruling party.
The BJP on Wednesday accused its rival party of attempting to incite violence during the Prime Minister’s Kanpur rally in the city’s Muslim-dominated area on Tuesday. “Samajwadi party conspired to jeopardise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally by inciting riots… Through a viral video, we saw a BJP vehicle that was being attacked and vandalised by Samajwadi Party workers wearing red caps, and attempted to set it on fire,” said BJP spokesman Sambit Patra.
He alleged the people, who allegedly vandalised the vehicle have been identified as SP’s student workers including national secretary Sachin Kesarwani. Patra added SP staged the violent incident. He claimed that this was done to provoke BJP workers and called it SP’s ‘goonda raj.’ “If Samajwadi Party workers tried to incite violence in that area, then it is clear that they wanted Hindu-Muslim riots so they could blame the BJP,” he said.
Modi was in Kanpur on Tuesday to inaugurate the Kanpur Metro Rail and another pipeline project. He also addressed the 54th convocation ceremony of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.