The Income Tax Department on Tuesday conducted raids at the properties of real estate company ACE Group and its promoter Ajay Chaudhary in Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida and Agra. According to the reports, Chaudhary is said to be a close aide of Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav.
I-T department officials are conducting raids at the premises of all ongoing projects of the ACE Group, as per reports. The raids had started at the Noida Sector 126 corporate offices of the organisation.
As per reports, over 30 locations related to Ajay Chaudhary are still being raided. It is pertinent to note that this is not the first time that an individual facing IT raids recently has been reported close to Akhilesh Yadav. In December, the premises of several SP leaders and associates like Manoj Yadav in Agra, Neetu Yadav aka Jainendra Yadav in Lucknow were raided by the IT sleuths.
Earlier, the Income Tax department from Varanasi had raided the residence of Rajeev Rai in the Sahadatpura area of the Mau district located in eastern UP. Rajeev Rai is the secretary and spokesperson of the Samajwadi Party.
Recently, the raids on perfume baron Piyush Jain and had resulted in the seizure of cash worth hundreds of crores. It was reported that Jain is a close associate of the Samajwadi Party. Later, Samajwadi Party MLC Pushparaj Jain was raided too.
Akhilesh Yadav has been vocal against the IT raids and has been alleging that the BJP government in the Centre and UP state is targeting him and his party ahead of the assembly elections because they are ‘scared to lose’. UP CM Yogi Adityanath had responded to those allegations with a ‘Chor Ki Dadhi Main Tinka’ (the thief makes himself known) jibe.