Barbs fly over I-T, GST searches in state

Bhubaneswar: The BJD and BJP have locked horns over the search operations being carried out by central and state tax authorities on properties of some businessmen, who are said to be close to one of the other parties.
For the past four days, officials of the income tax (I-T) department and Central Goods and Services Tax (GST) as well as state GST investigators have been checking out properties and tax documents of businessmen in Nayagarh, Balasore, Ganjam, Sambalpur, Kandhamal and Jajpur districts.
The BJD has questioned the timing of such search operations and have linked them to the bypoll in Jharsuguda assembly seat, scheduled on May 10, and the general elections, due next year.
“Whenever election season nears, the BJP uses central agencies to carry out search operations to target and harass their opposition. They resorted to such foul practice in the run-up to elections in the state in the past. These are not good signs for democracy,” BJD Rajya Sabha member Manas Mangaraj said.
Responding to the allegation, BJP state president Manmohan Samal said, “We are not like the BJD, which has been misusing its agencies, including the state commercial tax (CT) and GST wing to target us. The BJP is in no way connected with the ongoing income tax search operations. It is their routine duty. If someone has evaded tax, let the I-T department take action. Why is the BJD getting nervous?”
The I-T and CT&GST authorities said their search operations would be expanded to other places. They denied to be acting at the behest of political parties.
The search operations started on March 28 with the raid by the sleuths of Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) on a coaching centre in Bhubaneswar. The person who runs it is said to be close to the BJD. Subsequently, the I-T officials spread across different districts and searched the houses, business establishments, crusher units and construction sites of some businessmen, who are reportedly BJD supporters. Following this, the state CT&GST carried out searches on the premises of traders in Angul district, said to be close to the BJP.
It must be noted that a series of search operations were carried out by I-T and state CT&GST officials on the premises of supporters of the BJD and BJP in the run-up to the Padampur byelection last year.