Mounting an offensive against the BJP, the Congress party today convened a presser to attack the BJP and its senior leaders in a supposed ‘corruption case’ published in a report by the Caravan. The Caravan claimed that a diary with notes of Yeddyurappa having paid over Rs 1,800 crore to national BJP leaders such as Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari, and Rajanath Singh as well a Chief Justice of India is in possession of the Tax department since 2017. Now, CBDT has come out to refute the story published by Caravan and used by Congress to attack the BJP.
CBDT says that during their 2017 raids against Congress leader DK Shivakumar, they had found several incriminating pieces of evidence. During the raid, some loose papers were given the raiding party that had such entries, but the original was never provided. The papers seem to be a photocopy.
DK Shivakumar was confronted with these papers during interrogation and he had asserted that these papers were diary entries of BJP leader and former Karnataka CM BS Yeddyurappa giving money to other BJP leaders, judges and advocates. When asked about the source of the document, DK Shivakumar said that he cannot disclose the source of the document. He also asserted that he doesn’t know the timing of these alleged payments and neither does he have the original papers.
When the authorities asked him why he didn’t bring these documents to any authority’s notice, DK Shivakumar, according to CBDT said that he did not because was not sure of the authenticity and genuineness of these papers.
When BS Yeddyurappa was confronted, he denied the allegations. He said that he was not in the habit of making diary entries of keeping loose sheets. He also said that the handwriting on the note was not his. He reportedly provided a sample of his handwriting for comparison and also said that the documents were fabricated to malign him.
Pursuant to this, when the documents were sent for Forensics, the original papers were demanded for analysis. According to CBDT, DK Shivakumar refused to provide the originals.
The CBDT ends its statement by saying that the papers provided by DK Shivakumar seem dubious and were provided by someone who was being raided for tax violations.
Earlier, BJP leader Rajeev Chandrashekhar had also asserted that these fabricated papers are being leaked by Congress leader DK Shivakumar to conceal steal flyover scam diary that named several Congress leaders.
