Chennai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday conducted searches in the room of Electricity Minister Senthil Balaji in the Secretariat triggering a stir among the political class in Tamil Nadu.
The ED had also been conducting searches at places belonging to people close to Minister Senthil Balaji in Chennai, Karur, Coimbatore since this morning. A few weeks ago, Income Tax officials raided the homes and offices of people close to Senthil Balaji, and today the ED officials were conducting raids. The searches by ED were believed to be in connection with the cash-for-jobs scam in which Senthil Balaji is one of the accused. The Supreme Court had recently ordered the ED to resume investigation in the case.
Under such circumstances, the ED officers were conducting a search in the room of Minister Senthil Balaji in the Secretariat, which is the power center of the state. Around four officers entered the Secretariat at around 1.40 pm and started raiding the room and the searches were going till this report was filed . The ED and Indian Bank officials also were involved in the raid. The minister's assistants were in the room to take the necessary documents to them.
It is said that following the raid, Chief Minister M. K Stalin hurriedly completed his programs and returned home. According to sources, a group of five ED officials in a car escorted by Central Paramilitary forces raided Senthil Balaji’s house located in the Greenways road, his brother’s house and office in Bishop Garden area in the morning. Later, a communication regarding this was given to the minister who went for a walk in the morning. In no time, he left for home by car.
Later, addressing the media, the electricity minister said that the authorities will be given full cooperation and will speak out once the raid is completed. Moreover, the ED sleuths raided three places in the morning. Firstly, the residence of minister Senthil Balaji in Chennai, his brother Ashok's residence in Abhiramapuram, as well as owner of Sripathi Enterprises Gokul's residence in the same area.
When officials had reached the apartment of Senthil Balaji's younger brother Ashok in Abhiramipuram area at 7 am to raid the place, they were stopped by DMK party cadres and they were made to wait in the car parking of the apartment for nearly about 4 hours. Moreover, as the door of Ashok's house had been left ajar, Central Reserve Police Force personnel were informed and the door was opened.
Under such a situation, Chief Minister M. K. Stalin has issued a statement regarding the ED raids in places related to Minister Senthil Balaji saying that BJP's politics is threatening those who cannot be faced politically. "The BJP will take revenge on the political forces through its investigative powers. Further, I have already said that this is the only way they know. There are many examples of this happening in India in recent times in various states", he noted in the statement.
Slamming that it is not known what caused the need to go to the minister's room in the Secretariat and conduct a search, Stalin also pointed out that it is not known whether they (BJP) want to show that they will conduct a raid on the State's head office to threaten. All this shows that the investigative body is working with political motives.
It may be noted that this is the second time that the central agency, ED, conducted a raid in the Secretariat. The IT sleuths raided the home and office of then Chief Secretary P Rama Mohan Rao in 2016 in connection with information received during the quizzing of sand mining baron Sekar Reddy.
