The arrest of a Kanpur-based perfume trader Piyush Jain on charges of tax evasion and the recovery of over ₹257 crore in cash, gold and silver from his premises has found a place in the BJP’s election campaign in Uttar Pradesh and also brought back the issue of demonetisation into political discourse five years after it dominated the 2017 Assembly polls.
The ruling party led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has linked the trader and the unaccounted money to the Samajwadi Party, which has strongly denied the connection. The SP said Mr. Jain was actually linked to the BJP and accused it of misleading people.
In his public addresses in Prayagraj on Sunday and Sitapur and Pratapgarh on Monday, Mr. Adityanath referred to the tax raids on Mr. Jain to target the Opposition especially the SP. In Pratapgarh, where Mr. Adityanath launched projects worth ₹554 crore, he said five years ago this money would not be spent on development but land into the hands of “dalals [middlemen] like these.”
“It would be hidden behind walls and taken out when the time was right. Today, when the income tax [agencies] are digging out this money, the money meant for the poor will again be utilised to build homes for them,” said Mr. Adityanath.
The CM said the SP, the BSP and the Congress would loot money and now all that money was being recovered.
“Rooms after rooms are stashed with notes. Now you may be able to understand why babua [Akhilesh Yadav] opposed notebandi [demonetisation],” said Mr. Adityanath.
On December 22, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), Ahmedabad, with the support of officers of local Central GST initiated search operations in the premises of Trimurti Fragrance Pvt. Ltd. Kanpur, manufacturers of Shikhar brand Pan Masala and Tobacco products and the office and godowns of Ganpati Road Carriers, Transport Nagar, Kanpur, involved in transportation of goods.
Based on the intelligence inputs, the residential premises of the partners of Odochem Industries, Kannauj, U.P., located in Kanpur, who were supplying perfumery compound, mostly in cash, to the said company was also searched, said the DGGI.
During the search proceedings at the residential premises, a huge amount of cash, wrapped in paper, was found, said the DGGI, which initially accounted it at ₹150 crore even as counting and other recoveries went on even after that.
Manish Jagan Agarwal, SP’s digital media co-ordinator, said the BJP was deliberately linking Mr. Jain to the SP to defame the party. The raids at the house of Shikhar Pan Masala Group and perfume trader Piyush Jain in Kanpur were a “story of failure of demonetisation,” said Mr. Agarwal in a series of tweets, which were retweeted by party president Akhilesh Yadav.
Mr. Agarwal on Friday also said SP MLC from Kannauj Pushpraj Jain alias Pampi Jain, the person behind the Samajwadi Attar (Socialist Perfume) launched by the party recently, had no links with Mr. Piyush Jain. Party sources in Kannauj said the two Jains lived in the same locality and dealt in perfume but did not have any other connection. Mr. Piyush Jain supplied perfume essence for Shikhar pan masala company, the sources said.
Mr. Yadav has also demanded that the CDR (call detail record) of Mr. Piyush Jain be made public so that his links to the BJP are known. The former CM shared a tweet showing a Facebook photo in which Shikhar Masala company endorsed the BJP during the 2019 Lok Sabha election with the “sabka saath, sabka vikas” slogan printed over its tagline “ Hamesha Shikhar par [Always on top].”
Despite the clarification by the SP, Mr. Adityanath in Prayagraj on Sunday directly linked Mr. Pushpraj Jain to the raid, without naming him and referring to him as “a person associated with the SP who used to talk about Samajwadi perfume”.
Mr. Agarwal said the government agencies did not get anything out of the income tax raids on SP leaders including party national secretary Rajeev Rai, last week. Therefore, the BJP government immediately conducted a raid in Kanpur, recovered cash and “hatched a conspiracy” to drag in the SP.
Published - December 27, 2021 08:25 pm IST
