Shortly after the Income-Tax Department began simultaneous searches at 11 places belonging to Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary P. Rama Mohana Rao and his relatives on Wednesday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee hit out at the Central Government saying the action was vindictive. She suggested that the searches were political in nature and were being used by the ruling BJP as a tool to target political rivals.
Ms. Banerjee, in a series of six tweets, said, “Earlier the Principal Secretary of @ArvindKejriwal was raided and harassed. Now i read Chief Secretary TN also raided.” The Trinamool Congress chief wanted to know why BJP leaders were not being raided.
However, Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Pon. Radhakrishnan separately told journalists in Tamil Nadu that this was not a political action.
“The I-T Department has received information based on which they are conducting the raids. It could be black money or something else. There is no rule that bars raiding the houses of a government servant. There is no need to find meaning [into the raids]. There is no norm that only this person’s house has to be searched. I can’t comment as the raids are on. Based on information, the I-T department has the authority to conduct searches,” Ms. Sitharaman said in Madurai.
