The Income Tax Department on Saturday dismissed as “forged” the diary attributed to former Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa with entries allegedly showing payments made to BJP central leaders.

Following a report in The Caravan magazine, which cited pages of the diary seized during an IT raid to show that Mr. Yeddyurappa had paid bribes to the tune of ₹1,800 crore to the BJP’s top leadership, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday sought a Lokpal inquiry into the episode.

Addressing the media, Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax and Director General (I-T Investigations), Karnataka and Goa, B.R. Balakrishna said, “After due diligence, the department has concluded that the documents were forged.”

He also cited a statement from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Friday which said it could not get a forensic examination for handwriting match of the diary as forensic science laboratories (FSL) demanded original documents, which were not available. “A closer examination of the documents also shows certain discrepancies leading us to conclude it is forged,” said Mr. Balakrishna.

CBDT, in its statement on Friday, had said Karnataka Minister D.K. Shivakumar had given these “loose sheets”, photocopies of an alleged diary, during tax raids on him in August 2017, but had failed to furnish the originals. These sheets have entries suggesting payments made to the BJP high command, including leaders like L.K. Advani and incumbent cabinet ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari.

Further, Mr. Balakrishna said, “An attempt was made to use these documents to influence another probe in a kind of bargain, which the I-T Department did not succumb to.” He also said the first page of the magazine report was not recovered during the raids, but refused to expand on the specifics as to which page he was referring to.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Yeddyurappa tweeted that while the diary was fake and forged, it was also “edited and rewritten” multiple times. Referring to one entry, he said, “Fake diary says 1000 cr for Sri Gadkari’s son’s wedding & further edited diary says 10 Cr! Looks like someone was in a great hurry before getting it all printed (sic).”

Meanwhile, BJP posed 10 questions to the Congress, on why the party did not conduct any probe if they were in possession of the alleged diary.