Congress demands probe into BJP's alleged link with 'lottery king'

The Tamil Nadu BJP is in a spot after the Pradesh Congress Committee (TNCC) president, K.S. Alagiri alleged that the BJP has received an amount of Rs 100 crore during the 2021 Assembly elections from lottery king, Santiago Martin.

Congress has demanded a "transparent and impartial probe" into it.

The Congress leader wondered as to how the BJP was going to help Martin as a token of gratitude for receiving such huge money. He also said that the BJP is taking money from all shady characters in Tamil Nadu.

The Congress leader said that people like Martin were providing huge money to the BJP to protect themselves from the long arm of the law. K.S. Alagiri said that there must be a transparent and impartial probe into the relationship between BJP and people like Martin.

The Congress leader wondered whether the BJP would help Martin overcome the Income Tax cases registered against him and said that the BJP as a political party has been thoroughly exposed over this.

Santiago Martin is a lottery king based out of Coimbatore with a lottery business in northeastern states. He is believed to be worth more than Rs 30,000 crore asset base, and the ED had conducted several raids at his premises in Coimbatore and other parts of the country.

Martin was a labour contractor in Myanmar and landed back in Tamil Nadu in 1988 and commenced his lottery business.

He was jailed during the Karunanidhi government under several charges. He was also close to the CPI-M government of Kerala and had donated liberally to the coffers of the party and there were allegations of the party leaders accepting Rs 2 crore as advertisement for its mouthpiece 'Deshabhimani'.

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