Under-fire Congress MP Dhiraj Prasad Sahu has finally broken his silence over the country's “highest-ever” cash haul in an Income Tax department raid on an Odisha-based distillery firm owned by his family, and linked entities.
The searches against the Boudh Distillery Pvt. Ltd. (BDPL) and its linked entities in Odisha and Jharkhand, which began on December 6 and ended yesterday, yielded Rs 351 crore in cash.
Talking to ANI, Sahu admitted that the money recovered was linked to his liquor firms. “I admit the money that has been recovered belongs to my firm. The cash that has been recovered is related to my liquor firms; it is the proceedings from the sale of liquor.
“This money has nothing to do with Congress or any other political party as is being said. The money is not all mine, it belongs to my family and other related firms. I will give account for everything,” Sahu told ANI.
I-T officials also covered the family house of the Congress Rajya Sabha MP in Ranchi, apart from a number of entities including distributors and some hawala operators during the 10-day-long search, which was initiated on charges of alleged tax evasion and "out of book" transactions.
As many as 30-34 premises in Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal were raided and about three kg of gold jewellery was also seized during the operation.
A ground scanning wheeled machine was, reportedly, deployed at Sahu's house in Ranchi, to scan for valuables beneath the surface even as three dozen currency counting machines were brought in to count the huge stash of cash. Help from banks and staffers was also taken during this process.
The counting machines failed multiple times as they were being continuously used and also by the fact that many notes were soiled leading to the blocking of the infrared sensors that read the thread on the currency to tally the bunch placed inside. Many note bunches were counted twice or thrice..
Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders took a dig at the Congress and the INDIA bloc partners over the cash haul, the party distanced itself from Sahu.
"The Indian National Congress is in no way connected with the businesses of Dheeraj Sahu, 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," AICC general secretary Communications Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.
