Suryakant Tiwari, a Chhattisgarh-based businessman accused of tax evasion, on Sunday made a sensational claim that the Income-Tax department was putting pressure on him to pull off a “Maharashtra-like coup”.
Mr. Tiwari has been in the eye of a storm that has gathered over Chhattisgarh politics in the past ten days. It started on June 30 when the I-T department had conducted several raids on properties belonging to him and others including Saumya Chaurasia, the deputy secretary to Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel of the Congress.
“The I-T department officials tortured me into falsely admitting that I had links with Ms Chaurasia. They even promised to make me ‘the Eknath Shinde of Chhattisgarh’. For this, they asked me to provide a list of 40-45 MLAs I had good relations with and who could engineer a split in the State government to cause a fall and form a different one with the help of Opposition MLAs,” said Mr Tiwari.
He was referring to the recent rebellion in the neighbouring State following which a Shiv Sena-led coalition government collapsed and Mr. Shinde became the Chief Minister with support of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
In the 90-member Chhattisgarh Assembly, 46 is the majority mark and the current Congress government has 71 MLAs.
Following the recent raids, the Congress and the BJP have accused each other of helping Mr. Tiwari make illegal gains. Leaders from both sides have gone for a social media blitzkrieg posting pictures of the businessman with the leaders of both parties, including Mr. Baghel and former Chief Minister Dr. Raman Singh of the BJP.
Press meet by Raman
Mr. Singh had even held a press conference last week and had said that the I-T department had seized “undisclosed” cash and jewelry worth ₹14 crore and detected collection of unaccounted cash to the tune of over ₹200 crore, citing a press note from the department.
While he did not admit to any wrongdoing, Mr. Tiwari said that he had “good relations with leaders from both the parties”.
While launching a broadside against the I-T department, he also made several allegations against Mr. Singh and said that the latter, his family members, Cabinet colleagues and party members had been involved in several acts of corruption in the 15 years that the BJP had ruled the State.
