Our leaders getting IT notices to scare them before LS polls: MP Cong chief

The Income Tax department has sent notices to some Congress leaders to scare them ahead of Lok Sabha polls, the party's Madhya Pradesh unit chief Jitu Patwari said on Monday. They have been summoned to Delhi and not local offices of the department, he added.

"They are being scared by IT at the behest of the Central government. They (NDA government) have put to full use the Enforcement Directorate, IT and police to scare and weaken democracy. However, if those who get notices join the BJP, then they become clean," Patwari told reporters.

Jhabua Congress MLA Vikrant Bhuria told PTI he has been summoned to the IT department's Delhi office on 21 February, adding the notice has been served to him under section 131 of the Income Tax Act.

Congress leader Devashish Jarariya, who contested the 2019 Lok Sahba elections unsuccessfully from Bhind-Datia, put out a video claiming he had received summons from the IT department to be present at its New Delhi office on Tuesday.

"The Modi government is using ED, CBI and IT to crush the opposition. It is not concerned about big and small leaders, but anyone who opposes the BJP. I have been called as they want to trouble me since I may figure in the list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls," he claimed.

Asserting that he was not afraid of such situations, Jarariya said those from the Scheduled Castes, like him, were being harassed. "After meeting them on 13 February, I plan to file an SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act case in Gwalior against IT officials," he said.

According to sources, the Congress leaders have been subpoenaed in connection with an IT raid conducted in Bhopal in April 2019.