BJP-Turned-Trinamool MLA’s Properties Searched By I-T Department, Documents Revealing Grave Financial Irregularities Seized

The Income-Tax (I-T) Department conducted raids on offices and residences of turncoat businessman-politician Krishna Kalyani, who won the 2021 assembly polls on a BJP ticket but defected to the Trinamool.

I-T sleuths, guarded by strong contingents of paramilitary forces, fanned out to different parts of the state to conduct searches on seven premises linked to the controversial legislator who faces serious charges of non-payment of taxes and disproportionate assets.

Kalyani won the last assembly elections from Raiganj in North Bengal’s Uttar Dinajpur district on a BJP ticket, but resigned from the party a few months later and joined the Trinamool. He is currently the chairman of the Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Kalyani, however, has not resigned as an MLA and sought a fresh mandate, as is required under the law. The turncoat has come in for strong criticism for this. 

The MLA, who is linked to at least eight companies, is in the business of extraction and processing of nuclear fuel, trading in agricultural products and animal feed and in real estate. 

At 8 am on Wednesday (3 May), I-T sleuths knocked on the door of his house at Raiganj and seized his cellphone before searching that, and two other houses, belonging to Kalyani in that town. 

I-T sleuths went to the residences of managers of two companies linked to Kalyani and sealed them. An I-T team went to the residence of a real estate developer in Siliguri who has close ties with Kalyani to conduct a search, while another team went to Kalyani’s business partner Hemanta Sharma’s residence at English Bazar in Malda town. 

Kalyani’s office at Park Street in Kolkata was also searched by I-T sleuths who interrogated employees there about transactions made by the legislator’s flagship company — Kalyani Solvex Pvt Ltd — which supplies fuel to nuclear reactors. 

Senior I-T officers told Swarajya that Kalyani and his companies were being investigated by the department for some time. The initial investigations revealed that the MLA and his companies had evaded taxes and amassed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. 

A preliminary scan of the huge volume of documents and other material, including electronic data, seized from Kalyani’s residences and offices support these charges, said the IT officers. 

The Trinamool read political vendetta behind the I-T raids. Minister of state for finance Chandrima Bhattacharyya suggested Kalyani had come under the I-T Department’s scanner because he had severed ties with the BJP. 

Pointing to a recent spat between leader of opposition Suvendu Adhikari and Kalyani on the floor of the assembly where Adhikari had said that Kalyani would soon face probes by central agencies, the minister wondered how Adhikari could foretell the I-T raids on Kalyani.