Balangir/Sambalpur: The income tax raids on premises linked to Rajya Sabha MP Dhiraj Prasad Sahu of the Congress have reportedly turned into one of the biggest such operations ever, with over Rs 300 crore of cash seizures made from three districts of Odisha.
As the raids entered their sixth day Monday, as many as 176 bags of banknotes had been seized. Such is the volume of cash, it is learnt, that the cash-counting machines deployed for the operation struggled to keep up.
According to the manager of the SBI’s Balangir branch, where the cash is being counted, they received the first tranche in 156 bags on 6 December, with 20 more bags arriving over the next two days.
The bank, he added, had to bring in all of its staff to complete the counting of the cash — 50 staffers, he said, worked in shifts to take stock of the recoveries.
Behera said the bank had deployed 25 cash-counting machines, but still found it “tough to speed up the process because the machines were heating up as they ran non-stop”.
The size of the seizures has catapulted the operation to national headlines, also stoking an attack from top BJP leaders at the Congress, which has distanced itself from the matter and called for an explanation from Sahu.
The income tax department began raiding premises associated with the Odisha-based Boudh Distillery Private limited (BDPL) — chaired by Sahu’s elder brother Uday Shanker Prasad, with the MP’s son Ritesh Sahu serving as managing director — and Baldeo Sahu and Sons, a partner entity, Wednesday.
BDPL has four companies — BDPL, Baldeo Sahu Infra, Kwality Bottlers, Kishore Prasad Bijay Prasad Beverages.
The raids, which have also taken place in Jharkhand, began after a tip-off, according to sources in the income tax department.
At the time of publishing this report, I-T teams were stationed at a manufacturing unit of the company in the Sudpada area of Balangir, one of the sites where huge sums have been recovered, as well as Sahu’s residence at Radium Road in Jharkhand’s Ranchi.
The counting of cash recovered from three Odisha cities — Balangir, Sambalpur and Titlagarh — was concluded late Sunday, sources in the SBI’s Balangir branch informed ThePrint.
The total value of the cash is estimated to be over Rs 300 crore, but officials refused to divulge the exact amount citing lack of authority. ThePrint has learnt that, of this, Rs 37.5 crore was the cash recovered from Sambalpur and Rs 11 crore from Titlagarh.
Reached for comment, the director general of investigation at the IT department in Hyderabad, Sanjay Bahadur, who is leading the overall proceedings, refused to divulge details of the case and recoveries made.
ThePrint tried calling MP Sahu for a comment but his phone was switched off.
The Jharkhand unit of the party had said last week that the nature of the seizures was being misrepresented to target the Congress, adding that the entire cash hadn’t been recovered from the MP.
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A political battle begins
The warehouse of the Baldeo Sahu and Sons group of companies — Sahu’s late father was named Rai Sahab Baldeo Sahu — lies a couple of kilometres from the heart of Balangir town.
The raids at the premises, where country liquor is stored, kicked off the operation.
In Sambalpur, raids were conducted at the distillation centre of the Baldeo Sahu & Sons in the Dhanupali area of the district.
In Titlagarh, the raids targeted two men identified as business partners, Sanjay Sahu and Deepak Sahu.
Dhiraj Pratap Sahu, 68, was born in Ranchi and represents Jharkhand in Parliament.
He joined politics in 1977, and his profile on the Rajya Sabha website says he “belongs to a family which has been associated with the Congress party since Independence”.
The BJP was quick to launch an attack on the party in light of the raids, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week posting a news report regarding the raids and saying that “countrymen should look at these piles of currency notes and then hear the addresses of its (Congress) leaders on honesty”.
“Every penny looted from people will have to be returned,” he added in his post on X. “This is Modi’s guarantee.”
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said it “is now clear” that the Opposition’s “propaganda” about probe agencies being misused was “driven by fear”, adding that “their corruption will be exposed”.
In a statement, he also questioned the “silence” of the Opposition INDIA bloc leaders, saying he could understand “why the Congress is keeping mum… but why are parties like the Trinamool Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal doing the same?”
Meanwhile, Jairam Ramesh, the All India Congress Committee general secretary for communication, said the party “is in no way connected with the businesses of Dheeraj Sahu (sic), MP”.
“Only he can explain, and should explain, how huge amounts of cash have been reportedly unearthed by the income-tax authorities from his properties,” he added in a post on X
Speaking to ThePrint Friday, Jharkhand Congress spokesperson Rakesh Sinha had said the operation was being projected in the wrong light.
“It has been portrayed like the entire money has been recovered from Dhiraj Sahu. That isn’t the case. The country liquor business is being run by Dhiraj Sahu’s entire family and this has been the family business for decades and the family owns several companies,” he added. “By portraying that the entire money has been recovered from Dhiraj Sahu, they are targeting the Congress.”
This report has been updated to correct a typo
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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