Bengaluru: A month after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested senior Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar in a money laundering Congress, another central agency, the Income Tax department on Thursday raided the offices, medical and engineering colleges, hospital and residences of senior Congressman and former deputy chief minister Dr G. Parameshwar suspecting rampant corruption in the allocation of management quota seats for medical and engineering courses.
Sources said the managements of colleges run by the Congress bigwig had allegedly collected crores of rupees in cash to allot the seats.
Sleuths of the I-T department conducted simultaneous raids in Bengaluru, Koratagere in Tumakuru, Nelamangala and Kolar and scrutinised documents besides questioning the deans of the colleges.
Dr Parameshwar’s family runs the Siddhartha Group of Institutions which was established by his father H.M. Gangadharaiah 58 years ago. The team of I-T officers reached Dr Parameshwar’s residence in Sadashivanagar, a prime locality in Bengaluru city Thursday morning and conducted the raid with the help of the local police.
They also raided Siddhartha Technical University and Siddhartha Education institutions in Tumakuru city locking the college doors before verifying documents.
Dr Parameshwar was reportedly not present at the time of the raids. Senior Congress leaders including former chief minister Siddaramaiah and JD(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda condemned the raids. Siddaramaiah tweeted, “The series of IT raids on @Dr Parameshwara, RL Jalappa & others, are politically motivated with malafide intention.” “They are only targeting @INCKarnataka leaders as they have failed to face us on policy & corruption issues. We won’t budge to any such tactics!!” he added.
Gowda said “it’s condemnable,” without elaborating. Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge termed the raids as “vengeance politics”. “They are trying to terrify Congress leaders. They want to convey to Congress workers that whoever wishes to join the Congress should take note of it,” he said.
