Income Tax conducts searches at premises connected to TMC MLA Krishna Kalyani

Searches were conducted at Kayani's residence in Raiganj in West Bengal's Uttar Dinajpur district and premises linked to his business partner in Malda district

Officials of the Income Tax (IT) department on Wednesday conducted simultaneous day-long search operations in the premises of Trinamool Congress leader Krishna Kalyani at Raiganj, Malda and in the metropolis in connection with alleged disproportionate assets (DA) possessed by him.

Though Kalyani won the Raiganj assembly constituency in 2021 on a BJP ticket, he subsequently shifted his allegiance to TMC in the same year but officially remained a saffron party legislator.

He did not resign as a legislator despite being asked by the BJP.

An official of the IT department said that search operations were conducted at multiple locations of the legislator and his business partner in Raiganj, Malda and Kolkata against complaints of alleged disproportionate assets.

Searches were conducted at Kalyani's residence in Raiganj in West Bengal's Uttar Dinajpur district and premises linked to his business partner in Malda district.

"Our teams are conducting searches at multiple locations connected to Kalyani and the premises of one of his business partners in Malda", the official said.

Search operations were also undertaken at the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road office of Kalyani in the city.

Kalyani was appointed as the chairperson of the state assembly's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last year.

The IT raid started a political war of words between the ruling TMC and the BJP.

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"It seems the state BJP and its leaders are deciding whose house to be raided by central agencies. The BJP is misusing central agencies to serve its political interests," senior TMC leader and West Bengal Finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya said.

Incidentally, in March last year, Krishna Kalyani (Raiganj), along with three other BJP MLAs Tanmoy Ghosh (Bishnupur), Soumen Roy (Kaliaganj) and Biswajit Das (Bagda), who had switched over to the TMC, had accused Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari of threatening them with tax raids for disrupting his speech in the assembly.

Adhikari had then denied the allegations.

The BJP, however, was quick to mock the TMC by asking them to come out clean whether Krishna Kalyani is a BJP MLA or a TMC leader.

"The TMC always complains that central agencies don't raid houses of BJP leaders and MLAs. So Krishna Kalyani is still a BJP MLA, they must now come out clean whether he has joined the TMC or not. And it is natural that IT conducts raids regularly whenever they have any information," BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.

Kalyani, a known TMC leader in Uttar Dinajpur district, just ahead of the 2021 assembly polls, had switched over to the BJP, only to return to his former party within a year.