Chennai: The Enforcement Directorate on Monday conducted searches at the premises of DMK leader and Tamil Nadu Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy and his MP son Gautham Sigamani in a money laundering case linked to alleged illegal sand mining, official sources said.
According to the sources, the agency recovered around Rs 70 lakh cash and some pounds from the premises of the minister. The statement of the father-son duo may also be recorded during the searches.
The raids are being undertaken at the premises of the father-son duo in state capital Chennai and in Villupuram, they said while the ruling DMK dubbed the action ‘political vendetta.’ Ponmudy is the second Minister in the Chief Minister M K Stalin’s Cabinet to face ED raids following Senthil Balaji, who was arrested last month in a cash-for-jobs case following searches.
The 72-year-old minister is the second in the cabinet of Chief Minister M K Stalin to come under the scanner of the federal probe agency after Transport Minister Senthil Balaji. Balaji was raided and arrested by the ED in June as part of an alleged cash-for-jobs linked money laundering case investigation.
The money laundering case is linked to alleged irregularities when Ponmudy was the state mining minister (between 2007 and 2011) and there were allegations of violation of quarry licence conditions leading to loss of about Rs 28 crore to the exchequer.
DMK President and Chief Minister Stalin mocked the central agency as having joined the ‘election campaign.’ “As regards Tamil Nadu, Governor R N Ravi is already conducting a poll campaign for us and now, the ED has joined (the poll scene) and I feel the election work for us will be easy,” Stalin said.
“The DMK is not worried a wee bit,” he said on the ED searches. Such an action by the ED was ‘usual, ordinary and a drama’ enacted to divert attention.
Opposition parties joining forces has irritated the BJP and the ED searches reflected it. That agency’s raids were a ‘tactic to divert attention’ from the ‘objective’ of the Opposition meetings, held first in Patna last month, to be held now in Bengaluru and later in other states, Stalin alleged.
People, who were witnessing it all would give a fitting reply in the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he said.
Recently, Ponmudy was acquitted in two other cases ‘foisted’ on him during the AIADMK rule, Stalin said, adding ‘he (Ponmudy) will face the case legally.
‘India itself is facing a threat’ and the opposition’s meeting is to save the nation, he asserted.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said: “We condemn the ED raids against Tamil Nadu Education Minister, Dr. K Ponmudy, just before our crucial opposition meeting. This has become Modi Govt’s predictable script in order to intimidate and divide the opposition.” On his Twitter handle, Kharge further said surprisingly the BJP has ‘suddenly’ woken up to the need of putting together an alliance of ideologically opposed parties.
“All like-minded parties are united against the vendetta politics of the Modi Govt and shall not be bogged down by these cowardly tactics to trample upon democracy,” Kharge said.
In a tweet, Aam Aadmi Party top leader and Delhi CM, Arvind Kejriwal condemned the raids and accused the BJP regime of trying to break parties and scare everyone with ED.
But for ED, NDA would be left with no partners and many leaders in BJP would have also left. The BJP dispensation cannot ‘scare or control’ a great nation like India through the ED.
The CPI(M) and CPI were among the DMK’s other allies who have condemned the BJP-led Centre for the ED raids. Terming the raids ‘cheap’ activity, the CPI condemned the BJP for using the Central government’s ‘power to seek political mileage.’ The TN police had filed a complaint to probe these charges of alleged corruption against the minister and those linked to him and the Madras High Court in June refused to stay the trial in this case after Sigamani approached it with a petition for relief.
The minister is accused of obtaining mining/ quarry licenses for his son and other family members and the licenses are alleged to have quarried red sand beyond the permissible limit.
The High Court said that there were grounds to presume that the petitioner has committed the offence and hence the trial cannot be stopped.
DMK spokesperson A Saravanan told PTI: “This is political vendetta and aimed at testing the DMK’s resolve.” He alleged there has been no action from the Central authorities against the AIADMK leaders on graft cases such as the one involving the Gutka scandal.
PTI