EC for detailed K.D. Singh cash report
The Election Commission isn’t done with the recent instance of Trinamul Congress Rajya Sabha MP Kanwar Deep Singh travelling to Guwahati along with company officials who were found carrying `57 lakhs in cash just before the group boarded a private aircraft.
The commission has now asked the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to submit to it details of the “end use” for this huge amount of cash.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) S.Y. Quraishi told this newspaper on Thursday: “Even if the source of funds is proved, we’re more concerned about its end use. We need to know where has the money gone? Where was it used? We’ve asked the CBDT to find out and tell us.”
The CBDT, in turn, has told the EC that it checked and found that the cash was withdrawn from a Chandigarh bank.
However, it’s been asked by the EC how such a huge amount of money was allowed to go.
The EC is trying to get to the bottom of the `57-lakh “mystery” as its keen to curb the excessive use of “money power” as well as black money in the electoral process by parties and their candidates.
The EC query on the “end use” becomes significant given that Mr Singh, a Chandigarh-based industrialist who owns the Alchemist group of companies, is the Trinamul’s election in-charge for poll-bound Assam.
Often referred to as “Mr Moneybags”, Mr Singh became a JMM-backed Rajya Sabha MP last year but switched allegiance to the Trinamul some months later.
The CBDT has been asked to explain yet another curious discrepancy in its report. While the report says that the cash being carried amounted to `45 lakhs, media reports had said that the amount was `57 lakhs. Apart from pointing out this discrepancy, Mr Quraishi remarked, “In this day and age when even a labourer is paid though cash transfer, you don’t carry `57 lakhs in cash to pay your employees.”
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