MoS Agriculture charges Cong with receiving hawala money for polls

The BJP on Thursday fielded Minister of State for Agriculture Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to accuse the Congress of receiving hawala money for elections.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has registered a money laundering case against the senior Karnataka Congress leader DK Shivakumar and his associates on an alleged tax evasion and hawala transactions case. While Shivakumar has contended that the case is “politically motivated” and that the BJP is using Central investigating agencies to target political opponents, the BJP has presented documents pertaining to the case which it claims as proof of hawala money being channelled to the All India Congress Committee.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra, displayed the confessional statement of the accused — Anjaneya Haumanthaiah — an employee of the Karnataka Bhawan in Delhi, and others to the Income Tax department as proof against its claims.

Patra also said a statement by DK Shivakumar’s driver points out how “cash in kilograms” was driven to the Congress office. He had read out from documents purportedly pertaining to conversations between IT officials and Haumanthaiah, who confessed that he used to carry the money brought by N Rajendra — caretaker of the Karnataka Bhawan in Delhi — to the AICC. Haumanthaiah reportedly confessed accompanying only Rajendra and driver Jagdeesh Chand, who allegedly worked for DK Shivakumar.

Shekhawat asserted that there is a “Bangalore-Delhi hawala highway” that goes “straight to the Congress office”.

“Documents which have on-oath confession and testimonies of Government officials have unearthed the Bangalore-Delhi hawala highway through Chandni Chowk which was run by D K Shivakumar. Cash used to be sent to Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi’s office,” said Shekhawat.

According to the Union Minister, the Congress’s attack on demonetisation is based on the fact that the principal opposition party is using black money for elections. “Congress took a stand on demonetisation based on their hawala channel. On demonetisation, Rahul Gandhi wept copious tears. But why has no one in the Congress responded to the allegations of cash in kilograms and quintals that used to be sent to the AICC headquarters? It is now proved that the Congress and corruption are synonymous.

The Congress is misleading people on different issues because the party is linked to hawala money. DK Shivakumar, who is the king pin of hawala scam is alleging that the BJP is pushing the investigating agencies to act against them. If that were to be true, we would have canvassed on this issue during the Karnataka elections, because by July 2017, on-oath confessions had been admitted,” said Shekhawat.

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