'Don't Give Clean Chit If...': Ex-Congress Neta Seeks BJP Guarantee On Dhiraj Sahu

New Delhi: With more than Rs 300 crore in cash seized from the premises of a distillery company linked to Congress MP Dhiraj Sahu, Priyanka Chaturvedi, an MP from the Shiv Sena, and a former spokesperson for the Congress, has appealed to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to not give the Congress MP a clean chit if he joins BJP in the future. The Shiv Sena leader's comment comes at a time when officials of the Income Tax department are still carrying out raids at the distillery premises.

Chaturvedi, a Member of Parliament from the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena, in her comments, also referred to the allegations against leaders of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Ajit Pawar in the 70,000 crore alleged Maharashtra irrigation scam and alleged that top leaders from the NCP faction defected and joined the BJP and "all the ED and I-T actions against them stood dissolved."

"Before terming the Congress 'corrupted', the BJP should assure the country that these corrupts aren't offered to free themselves of their sins if they join the party in the future," Chaturvedi said, while adding that Congress MP Dhiraj Sahu's action is a practice of "out-and-out tax evasion".

The BJP and its allies have sought to target the Congress party after the I-T raids revealed stashes of cash at the premises linked to Dhiraj Sahu. Chirag Paswan, son of the late Ram Vilas Paswan and leader of BJP-ally Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), said called corruption in the Congress an "old tradition". "First they will do corruption and once they're caught, they will try to brush it aside," he said.

BJP national president JP Nadda has also hit out at the Congress following the I-T raids at premises linked to the party's MP. In a post on X, Nadda said, "This is new India; here, exploitation in the masses in the name of the royal family will not be allowed. You will be tired running away but the law will not give up the pursuit."

"If Congress is the guarantee of corruption, Narendra Modi ji is the guarantee of action against corruption. The public's money will have to be returned," he wrote in Hindi.