BENGALURU: The seizure of a huge amount of money from a hotel room in Gandhinagar here on Friday has sparked off a row with BJP linking the cash to Rural Development and Panchayat Raj minister Krishna Byre Gowda and demanding his resignation. BJP has lodged a formal complaint with the chief electoral officer.
Income Tax officials raided the lodge and seized Rs 1.5 crore cash and incriminating documents from a room allegedly belonging to Narayanagouda Patil, an executive engineer of the RDPR department from Haveri. BJP was quick to latch on to this. In a formal complaint to the chief electoral officer, BJP alleged,
“The money was brought to pay Krishna Byre Gowda towards poll expenses. It is understood that the money was collected from various contractors at about 10-20% commission for works awarded.’’
BJP General Secretary N Ravi Kumar stated, “We are shocked at the disappearance of the engineer. The police should have arrested Patil, but did not act. It is therefore necessary to investigate the matter to uncover the source of the money seized. We also demand an investigation into the role of RDPR Minister.’’
When contacted, the minister said, “There was an I-T raid on a private individual who has supposedly given the name of an officer. The facts are not known. Let it be probed.’’ When pointed out that BJP had accused him, he said, “The I-T department is under the Centre. Let them conduct an inquiry, let the facts come out. It is far-fetched to accuse me. I welcome the election authorities to conduct an inquiry too. BJP is making wild allegations against me without facts.’’
The RDPR executive engineer Narayangouda Patil had checked into Rajmahal Lodge in Gandhinagar, and curiously, had booked two rooms — 103 and 105. Based on a tip-off, I-T officials raided the rooms and seized bundles of currency notes in Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 denomination, valuables and other documents. Narayangouda was not in the room at the time of the raid and fearing arrest, did not return, sources said.
During questioning, the official’s driver confessed that he was collecting money on behalf of some politicians for the upcoming LS elections. Soon after, IT officials raided Nayarangouda Patil’s residence in Haveri too. They found some loose sheets and scraps of paper with amounts scribbled on it, sources added.