Vijayawada: The Income Tax officials conducted raids in the house, gas agency and petroleum outlets belonging to Telugu Desam leader Kovelamudi Ravindra alias Nani at Guntur on Thursday.
Protesting the I-T raids, TD Rajya Sabha member Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar lodged a complaint with AP Chief Electoral Officer G.K. Dwivedi on Thursday. He is the main and active leader of TD in Guntur district. Hence, the TD leaders have been objecting to the raids as ‘politically motivated’.
The TD cadre, along with their leaders, staged a protest for some time alleging that the BJP has been conducting raids on the directive of YSRC to suppress TD leaders in this election.
According to the reports, around 10 officials of the I-T department started co-nducting checks on Thursday at the gas agency and petrol outlets situated at Brodipet and Brundavan Gardens in Guntur city.
They did not allow anybody to enter the record rooms and continued the checks. Knowing about the raids, the TD leaders, along with activists, squ-atted in front of the Amb-edkar statue on Amara-vati road demanding that the I-T men stop the raids which further disturbed the traffic.
They alleged that earlier also, I-T officials conducted raids against Kovelam-udi Ravindra a few mont-hs ago and have been once again conducting checks to create fear among the TD leaders on the directive of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Telan-gana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and YSRC president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. As the I-T officials refused to stop the checks, TD leaders Mannava Subba Rao, D. Prabhakar, S.K. Lalvazeer, V. Harshavardhan, M. Babu Rao and others called off the protest.
Further, Mr Ravindra Kumar lodged a complaint with Mr Dwivedi, alleging that the BJP government has been misusing the I-T department against the TD leaders during this election. He alleged that the YSRC has been offering money to lure voters in the election and the TD took the issue to the not-ice of Mr Dwivedi, by ha-nding over related videos.
