Unending saga of I-T raids in Tamil Nadu

Be it the raid at former AIADMK minister Natham Viswanathan’s residence even when late J Jayalalithaa was alive or subsequent I-T grilling of Health Minister Vijaya Baskar or even senior bureaucrat Ramamohan Rao’s son’s places or persons reportedly associated with deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam, the ‘crackdown’ on tax payers have had a wee bit of legitimacy attached to it and that too for a short span, thanks mostly to the seizures during the raids.

However, the subsequent inaction on the part of the I-T watchdog had only prompted people to suspect if the raids were more a political tool than a crackdown on tax evaders.

Let alone AIADMK, a number of DMK ex-ministers like S Jegathratchagan and EV Velu have also had the pleasure of hosting the I-T sleuths at their residences in the last decade. Notably, not even a few cases have reached the legal end. The quashing of two FIRs against sand mining baron Sekar Reddy and progress of the other cases would certainly not reflect well on the resume of the I-T sleuths who had organized the hits against the politicians and their businessmen friends.

As much as departmental inaction, the timing of the central agencies’ raids has also left a lot to be desired. For instance, the income tax department has exposed the cash haul in road contractors barely a few days after BJP national president Amit Shah had rated the Tamil Nadu ruled by Dravidian parties the most corrupt state in the country last week. Shah’s lieutenants in the state BJP who were thus far playing Devil’s Advocate for the Edappadi Palaniswami regime had only contributed to the trust deficit on central agencies’ clampdown on state leaders by turning preachers of probity in public life overnight.

Similar untimely raids had happened in the UPA-II regime when the CBI knocked at DMK working president M K Stalin’s house a day after the party pulled out of the Congress led alliance in March 2013, leaving the national party red faced. Another key player in the state polity, AMMK leader TTV Dinakaran and a few other key members of V K Sasikala’s family also had some answering to do when the I-T watchdog came calling late 2017.

Unlike the past raids, the November 2017 raid had created ripples in the AIADMK then as one of the venues was late Jayalalithaa’s Poe’s Garden and the Jaya Tv run by the party and that too when a 50-MP strong ADMK was getting quite pally with the BJP led Centre, subscribing to ideas like NEET and Uday schemes which were vehemently opposed during late leader’s tenure. Significantly, the DMK, which played political vendetta card when it was a ‘victim’ of raids and even accused the ruling BJP of abusing central agencies to arm twist regional players to advance it political interests, has ‘welcomed’ Monday’s raids in ‘public interest’ and sought an expeditious probe into all I-T raids conducted in the AIADMK regime.

Other Opposition parties like PMK have also joined the chorus and demanded ‘justice’ against the ruling dispensation. Understandably, the ruling AIADMK, which had celebrated the raids of 2013 against DMK, has neither played the victim card nor put up a brave face now. Other than Jayakumar in the AIADMK, a few low-ranked party spokespersons had hesitantly admitted in talks shows that the raid was an intimidation they would not be influenced by.

Unsurprisingly, voices of support had poured in for the AIADMK from relatively small players like the VCK, which has categorically called the raids “politically motivated” acts of arm twisting the ruling BJP uses to coerce regional parties.

Unless the central agencies pursue the cases with legitimate and strong follow up action, the mind-boggling haul of gold and currency would reduce to another enticing topic during dinner-time chats and probably ammunition during future election campaigns. The buzz in political circles now is that the ongoing raids would not evoke as much sympathy for the ruling dispensation or political backlash in the state as it did for a few netas in the recent past. Unwilling to buy the raids story, opposition in the state has already started floating theories that the raids could a joint ploy of the BJP and AIADMK to reduce the hatred quotient of the state party ahead of an election season.