Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke on the Income Tax raids that have recently been conducted on members of Kumarswamy’s family and the Congress, saying, “If you have nothing to hide, then why are you scared?”

This is the first time the prime minister has publicly responded to charges of abuse of power, which have been alleged by the Congress and JD(S). Kumaraswamy had said the IT raids, during the on-going election season, were politically motivated and allegedly amounted to misuse of state machinery in favour of the ruling party.

Last month, the CM had tweeted, “PM @narendramodi’s real surgical strike is out in the open through IT dept raids. The constitutional post offer for IT officer Balakrishna helped the PM in his game. Highly deplorable to use govt machinery, corrupt officials to harass opponents during election time.” The I-T Department, which comes under the union government, had conducted raids on 15-20 members of JD(S) and Congress in Karnataka including people linked to Kumaraswamy’s family. Raids were also conducted on Congress candidates Krishna Byre Gowda and Rizwan Arshad as well as Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar among others.