Daijiworld Media Network - Hubballi (MS)

Hubballi, May 15: The IT (Income Tax) sleuths conducted lightning raid on a resort and a hotel here on the evening of Monday, May 13. This raid continued till the wee hours of Tuesday. Chief minister H D Kumaraswamy and other political leaders were staying in these places due to the campaigning for by-elections.

The raid was conducted by the joint teams of IT and the mobile flying squads of Election Commission in wake of the by-polls of Kundagol and Chincholi assembly constituencies. It is said the raid was conducted to check whether any cash was stored in the said hotel and resort by the political leaders in order to distribute the same to the voters.

H D Kumaraswamy and D K Shivakumar - File photo

The raid which started at 9 pm on Monday continued till 2 am of Tuesday. However, the attempt of IT officials to search the room of chief minister H D Kumaraswamy was negated by his security personnel and the IT team could not produce valid documents for searching the room.

It is learnt that the IT sleuths and EC officials tried to enter the rooms of ministers in the state cabinet D K Shivakumar and Zameer Ahmed Khan as well as that of MLA Santhosh Lad. However, no details of the raid have been given by the IT department till now.

It is said that the sleuths confiscated 50 gold-plated sindoor boxes, seven lists of voters, 11 portraits of the late minister C S Shivalli and other items. The Gokul Road Police Station cops have registered a case in this regard against Shivakumar Chandrashekhar Gokavi.