KARWAR: The Enforcement Directorate has seized over Rs 1 crore in cash and over 6 kg gold from the house of Congress MLA Satish Sail who represents Karwar-Ankola constituency.
The ED raid at the MLA’s house began on August 13 and went on till Thursday morning. A day after the raid, the ED, in a social media post, said Rs 1.68 crore in cash and 6.75 kilos of gold have been seized along with several documents, while bank accounts of Rs 14.13 crore have been frozen. The ED, Bengaluru, conducted search operations at multiple locations in Karwar, Goa, Mumbai and New Delhi in an ongoing investigation into those MLAs and others who were convicted by the special court for MPs and MLAs for illegal export of iron ore.
Mankal Vaidya, the Congress’s district in-charge, said that Sail has been filing income tax returns up to Rs 150 crore annually and will explain to the officials how he has earned his wealth in a fair and legal manner. Vaidya said the BJP government at the Centre is misusing the ED as a tool to harass Congress leaders.
The raid on Sail’s house is considered as a follow-up operation after the ED team raided two mining giants of Vijayanagar district, Swastik Nagraj and Karadapudi Mahesh, former allies of the BJP leader Janardhan Reddy.