Dhiraj Sahu Cash Seizure: No Legitimate Business Can Justify Hoarding Such Astronomical Amounts Of Cash
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2023-12-10 10:13:53
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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The cash seized from the premises of Congress MP and businessman Dhiraj Sahu (who runs a distillery, among other businesses) from Odisha and Jharkhand has almost touched the figure of Rs 300 crore and the counting machines are still busy. It is clear that this is the biggest cash haul in the country in a raid by the I-T department. Prima facie, it is also clear that Sahu and his companies were deep into tax evasion, hoarding ill-begotten cash and maybe conducting hawala transactions, over and under-billing and even false billing, among other illegal and corrupt business practices. For, no legitimate business where each transaction is recorded and payments and receipts are carried out only through banking channels can justify the holding of such huge sums of cash. It is being reported that there are other locations where more cash is said to be stashed. Apart from the cash, gold and silver jewellery weighing 17 kgs have also been seized.
Since Sahu is a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha, the matter has become political. PM Modi and BJP president J P Nadda have lashed out at the Congress for sheltering corrupt businessmen. The Congress, on its part, has issued a statement that it has nothing to do with Sahu's businesses. It said that the MP concerned was the best person to explain the source of the cash found at premises linked to him. BJP's Odisha unit has demanded a CBI probe into the affairs of Sahu.
With elections becoming a costly affair, rich parliamentarians have now become a norm. There is also a buzz that Rajya Sabha nominations are sold by parties to the highest bidder. Although Sahu's family has been associated with the Congress for a long time and his brother Shiv Prasad Sahu won from the Ranchi Lok Sabha seat twice on a Congress ticket, Dhiraj Sahu has never contested elections but bagged the Rajya Sabha seat thrice from Jharkhand. He has a lot to answer now and maybe other Central agencies, apart from the I-T department, will now join the probe. One thing is sure though, in this case the opposition cannot claim that Central agencies are falsely targeting opposition politicians.
